
































































































X° °s... 








- 






NOTES 



TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 



NOTES 



TRAVEL AND STUM IN ITALY. 



BT 



CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 







BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

SRfoe Etoerst&t Press, GDamiriBffj*. 



\ 



Copyright, 1859 and 1887, 
By CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 



Of* 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED B? 

O. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



PEEFACE. 



A portion of the following Notes appeared in 
" The Crayon " (luring the year 1856. The larger 
part of this volume, however, is now published for 
the first time. 

I am well aware that a traveller is likely often 
to draw false inferences from what he sees and 
hears, especially in a country whose people are of 
a different race and whose institutions are of a dif- 
ferent character from those of his own. This has 
led me to be sparing in my deductions from my 
personal observation and experience. 

But there are certain principles in religion and 
in government of universal application ; and how 
far these principles are adopted or rejected in any 
special state is a subject upon which an intelligent 
man is bound to form and at liberty to express a 
distinct opinion. 



VI PREFACE. 

I have not hesitated in the following pages to 
express myself strongly in regard to some of the 
corrupt doctrines of the Roman Church and 
methods of the Papal Government. But while 
condemning much in the practice of the authori- 
ties of the Church, I retain the highest respect 
for many of its members, — and I am bound to 
some of them by ties of warm affection. I regret 
that what I have said may, if it come before them, 
give pain to persons whom I should wish only to 
please. 

The present condition of Italy is full of hope for 
the future. A new life seems to have begun for 
her, and every lover of freedom will join in the 
wish that Carlo Alberto's vigorous declaration may 
now prove true, Italia far a da se. 

Shady Hill, Cambridge, Mass., hth December ; 1859. 



CONTENTS. 



PACTS 

The Riviera. Genoa. Florence . . . 1-25 

Entrance to Italy 1 

Modern Middle Ages 2 

The Prospects of Sardinia . . . 3 

The Festa of the Immaculate Conception . . 5 

The Cathedral Buildings at Pisa . . . 8 

La Compagnia della Misericordia . . . 12 

Rome 27-96 

Stendhal on entering Rome . . . . 29 

The Burial of Prince Corsini .... 29 

The Propaganda 32 

The Festa of Sant' Antonio. A Recent Miracle 36 

A Taking of the Veil 44 

Cornelius and his School 49 

The Accademia Tiberina .... 57 

The Chapel of Nicholas V., and Fra Angelico . 62 



vm 



CONTENTS. 



An Architect's Imprisonment . 

Character of the Roman Government 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew at Rome 

Roman Justice 

The Good Works of Letterato 
Evening Schools ... . 



PAGE 

70 
72 
75 
84 
85 
93 



Orvieto 

The Building of the Cathedral 



97-159 
99 



Rome. Naples. Venice 161-196 

Ecclesiastical Government . . . , .163 
Bitterness of the Italian Poets . . . 165 
The Love of Sertorius for Rome . . . 166 
Shakespeare : Ballo in Quattro Parti . . 166 
A Specimen of Neapolitan Theology . . . 169 
Education of the Poor. Falerii Novi . . 170 
Popular Lessons at Perugia . . . .174 
Mr. John BelPs Criticisms on Pictures at Bo- 
logna . . 175 

Hell and Purgatory 181 

The Mosaics of St. Mark's .... 186 

Rome 197-320 

Shakespeare on Rome 199 

The Erection of the Column of the Immaculate 

Conception 201 



CONTENTS. ix 

PAGE 

The Harvest and the Priests .... 203 

The Doctrine of Indulgences . . . .204 
The Transmigration of Cardinals . . . 220 

A Sermon by the Pere Petitot . . . .221 
Buried Treasures and Stories on Walls . . 225 

Cheap Literature and Modern Miracles . . 229 
A Sermon by Dr. Manning . . . . 239 

Montaigne, Bacon, and the New Testament in 

the Index 241 

Borne in the Time of Dante . . . . 246 

Borne in the Time of Petrarch . • . .268 
The Mausoleum of Augustus . . . . £89 

B Don Pirlone 252 

The Benaissance in Italy . . . 298 



THE RIVIERA. GENOA. FLORENCE 



THE RIVIERA. GENOA. FLORENCE 



December, 1855. 

The Var forms the geographical boundary between 
France and Italy ; but it is not till Nice is left behind, 
and the first height of the Riviera is surmounted, that 
the real Italy begins. Here the hills close round at the 
north, and suddenly, as the road turns at the top of a 
long ascent, the Mediterranean appears far below, wash- 
ing the feet of the mountains that form the coast, and 
stretching away to the southern horizon. The line of 
the shore is of extraordinary beauty. Here an abrupt 
cliff rises from the sea ; here bold and broken masses of 
rock jut out into it ; here the hills, their gray sides ter- 
raced for vineyards, slope gently down to the water's 
edge ; here they stretch into little promontories covered 
with orange and olive trees. 

One of the first of these promontories is that of Capo 
Sant' Ospizio. A close grove of olives half conceals the 
old castle on its extreme point. With the afternoon sun 
full upon it, the trees palely glimmering as their leaves 
move in the light air, the sea so blue and smooth as to be 
like a darker sky, and not even a ripple upon the beach, 
l 



2 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

it seems as if this were the very home of summer and of 
repose. It is remote and secluded from the stir and 
noise of the world. No road is seen leading to it, and 
one looks down upon the solitary castle and wonders what 
stories of enchantment and romance belong to a ruin that 
appears as if made for their dwelling-place. It is a scene 
out of that Italy which is the home of the imagination, 
and which becomes the Italy of memory. 

As the road winds down to the sea, it passes under a 
high isolated peak, on which stands Esa, built as a city 
of refuge against pirates and Moors. A little farther on, 

" Its Roman strength Turbia showed 
In ruins by this mountain road," — 

not only recalling the ancient times, when it was the 
boundary city of Italy and Gaul, and when Augustus 
erected his triumphal arch within it, but associated also 
with Dante and the steep of Purgatory. Beneath lies 
Monaco, glowing " like a gem " on its oval rock, the sea 
sparkling around it, and the long western rays of the 
sinking sun lingering on its little palace, clinging to its 
church belfry and its gray wall, as if loath to leave 
them. 

COGOLETTO. 

As I passed through the lower room of the poor inn 
in this dirty little town, which is one of the many that 
claim the honor of having been the birth-place of Co- 
lumbus, I was attracted by seeing a Franciscan hold- 
ing a tin money-box, on which was painted a figure of 
the Virgin, and engaged in close conversation with the 



GENOA. 3 

master of the house. The room was used as a caffe, 
and idlers of various sorts were standing at the door, 
or sitting at the table in the middle of the room tak- 
ing their coffee or their glass of vermuth di Torino. 
Some of them were listening to the talk between the 
friar and the landlord ; and it appeared that the Francis- 
can was trying to persuade the innkeeper to purchase 
from him the secret of the lucky numbers in the lottery 
which is to be drawn next Saturday in Genoa, — a 
secret which he declared had been revealed to him in 
a dream. The friar was successful, and ; after some hag- 
gling about the price, took a bit of money which jingled 
into his box, giving in return a slip of paper on which 
were inscribed the desired numbers. 

The Middle Ages still possess Italy. In these country- 
towns, even in enlightened Sardinia, one feels himself a 
contemporary of Boccaccio, and might read many of the 
tales of the " Decameron " as stories of the present day. 
The life of the common people has much the same 
aspect now as it had centuries ago. Italy has under- 
gone many vicissitudes, but few changes. 11 vecchio 
pianta la vigna e il giovine la vendemmia : " The old 
plant the vine and the young gather the fruit from it," 
says a common proverb. The Italians of to-day are 
gathering the fruit off the ancient stock. 

Genoa. 
The success of the experiment of constitutional gov- 
ernment in Sardinia is at this moment the chief hope of 
Italy. A liberal and wise spirit of reform is uniting the 



4 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

interests of all classes, and a steady, gradual progress 
proving the ability of Italians to govern themselves with- 
out the excesses of enthusiasm or the evils of extrava- 
gant and undisciplined hopes. While Milan and Venice 
are hemmed round by Austrian bayonets, and Florence 
is discontented under the stupid despotism of an insane 
bigot, — while Rome stagnates under the superstition of 
priests, and Naples under the brutality of a Bourbon, 
Turin and Genoa are flourishing and independent. The 
old traditions of the commercial enterprise and warlike 
expeditions of the Genoese are being renewed, and the 
prosperity of this great port is one of the most important 
elements in the present political prospect of Italy. 

Every gain of material power is at the same time a 
gain of moral power for Sardinia. The regeneration of 
Italy depends on the renewal of her ancient material 
prosperity. Commerce is the support of liberty. Free 
trade opens the way for free speech and free thought, 
and leads to freedom in politics and in religion. Rail- 
roads are more subversive of ecclesiastical supremacy 
than the ablest tracts against Popery. To develop her 
internal resources is the true policy of Sardinia. Her 
increasing strength at home gives her new strength 
abroad ; and her example is a daily growing danger to 
the despotisms that lie around her borders. Lombardy 
belongs by nature to Piedmont ; and no cordon of Aus- 
trian troops, no legion of spies can keep Lombard eyes 
from casting longing looks toward the west, or Lombard 
hearts from being touched into flame by the breath of 
liberty that invisibly blows over the frontier. Every 



PIETRA SANTA. 

ship that Genoa sends from her harbor carries away, 
as its unregistered cargo, something of the superstition 
and ignorance of Northern Italy. Her trading-vessels 
are the peaceful, but irresistible fleet of Freedom. Pied- 
mont was the last retreat of Liberty in Italy, and it is 
now becoming; her stronghold. 

It is not to be overlooked, however, that the present 
condition of the mass of the people of Piedmont is so 
low in point of education and of desire, that it is difficult 
to make them take any hearty interest in the cause of 
constitutional freedom, or to bear their part in the work- 
ing of the government. They are led just now more 
rapidly than they can well follow. The difference be- 
tween the views of the common people and those of such 
men as Cavour and d' Azeglio is a difference, not of de- 
gree, but of kind. The peril of Sardinia arises not so 
much from the neighboring hostility of Austria and the 
dull opposition of Rome, as from the inevitable internal 
weakness which must for a time be the result of such 
forcing processes as she is compelled to undergo. 

Pietra Santa, 9th December, 1855. 
A year ago the dogma of the Immaculate Conception 
of the Virgin was pronounced; at Rome, and the first 
anniversary of this event, a which spread joy through the 
heavens and the earth," as an inscription that I read de- 
clared, has been celebrated to-day as afesta. The streets 
of the towns through which we have passed have been 
filled with bright crowds of people keeping the holiday, 
and all the bells of the churches have been ringing. We 



6 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

stopped at Pietra Santa just at sunset, and I went down 
through the narrow street to the square of the little city, 
where the old church of San Martino, and its, tall, rough 
brick campanile, form, with the smaller church of Sant' 
Agostino, a group of buildings of striking peculiarity and 
interest. The square was almost empty, except imrae- ? 
diately around the doors of St. Martin's, through which 
people were passing in and out. Going into the church, 
I found it full of worshippers. The high altar was 
lighted with a hundred candles, that burned in the midst 
of brilliant decorations and hangings of crimson drapery. 
The light about the altar was the only light in the church ; 
the nave and aisles were dim in the twilight. On the 
step of the altar, in front of the railing, were kneeling 
a band of the Fratres Penitential, in black dresses with 
white capes, girt with a cord about their waists. Imme- 
diately behind them sat the Gonfalonieri of the city, in 
purple cloaks lined with yellow, and black velvet caps 
with white plumes. Soldiers kept the space around 
them clear, but all the rest of the church was filled by 
men and women of every class, in characteristic and 
picturesque varieties of costume, standing or kneeling; 
while the priests chanted, and the choir, supported by 
the organ and trumpets, took up in turn its parts of the 
service. It was a scene from the Middle Ages. It 
seemed as if the old church were filled with such a 
crowd as might have collected within it five centuries 
ago. All was in keeping: — the strange dogma which 
was being celebrated as a doctrine of pure religion, — 
the growing darkness in the church, save where the can- 



PIETRA SANTA. 7 

dies shone on the gold and silver ornaments of the altar, 
— the voices of the priests, interrupted now and then by 
the clink of the metallic money-box in the hands of the 
beadles, as they passed round to collect the offerings of 
the pious, — the chanted litany, with the loud murmur of 
the responses through nave and aisles, — the dead lan- 
guage of the service, — all seemed to partake more of 
the spirit of the past than of the present, to be an inheri- 
tance from Heathenism rather than the natural growth 
of Christianity. 

When the service had ended, it was growing dark out 
of doors. The Gonfalonier! were accompanied by their 
guard and a band of music to the city-hall, and the 
illumination which had been prepared for the evening 
celebration was begun. As the night became darker, 
the scene became more beautiful. From the gate in 
the old wall down through the main street leading to 
the square, the houses were prettily lighted up; but 
in the square itself, the churches, and all the build- 
ings round them, were brilliant with lamps, while lights 
shone down from the ancient castle crowning the hill 
that rises above the city. In a little chapel, whose out- 
side was covered with colored lamps, a choir of boys 
was singing. The townspeople and the peasants, in holi- 
day costume, were assembled in great numbers to see 
and take part in the show. The night was calm, so that 
the lamps burned steadily ; and the pleasure of the time 
was increased by the mildness of the air, which had no 
touch of winter in it. The great church, such a church as 
is found only in Northern Italy, with the irregular mould- 



8 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

ings of its doors, its quaint carvings, and its beautiful rose- 
window, stood upon its platform, raised above the level of 
the place, looking only the more venerable in the imper- 
fect brilliancy of the illumination, which, while it sharply 
defined some of the main lines of the fagade, left broad 
spaces of wall in dim and shadowy obscurity. An illu- 
mination is, perhaps, always quite as fine in its effects of 
darkness as of light ; and while the eye is charmed with 
the shining and brilliant lines cut sharp against the dark 
sky, or with the fiery ornaments of crosses and stars that 
lie against the black walls, or with the pencillings of 
light that show the exquisite delicacy and gracefulness 
of some ancient stone-cut ornament, — the imagination 
leaves all these, and wanders off to lose itself among 
the hidden secrets of the dense masses of blackness that 
catch not even a reflection of the brightness around them, 
but lie deeper and darker than night, vague and mysteri- 
ous, in the very heart of light. 

Pisa. 
There are few buildings in the world so complete in 
their effect, so impressive at first sight, and of such in- 
creasing interest upon longer acquaintance, as the Duomo 
group at Pisa. Forsyth has expressed a portion of their 
peculiar charm, in one of those vivid and poetic half- 
lines with which he redeems his cynical criticisms, when 
he speaks of them as " fortunate alike in their society 
and their solitude." Pisa has an air of repose, but not the 
air of decay which is usually associated with it in Italian 
cities. It is at once quiet and cheerful, and in its most 






THE CATHEDRAL BUILDINGS AT PISA. 9 

retired part, close to the battlemented wall, remote from 
bustle, but not secluded from approach, stand the Cathe- 
dral, the Baptistery, the Campo Santo, and the Leaning 
Tower. To their original beauties time has added those 
which come only with age, softening and harmonizing all 
that was rough and incongruous, and giving to their white 
marble a hue which can be described only as that of 
marble interfused with the yellow rays of sunshine, and, 
while adding these beauties, has accumulated with them 
all the charms of Art and of association. The contrast 
between the color of the buildings and the blue sky is 
beautiful; and the slanting shadows, thrown by a clear 
afternoon sun from the seven circles of the pillars of the 
Tower, from the pillared stories of the front of the Duomo, 
and from the exquisite tracery of the arches of the Cam- 
po Santo, produce effects which show how Nature delights 
to adorn and embellish the well-executed works of man. 

For the student of the works of the early artists, there 
is no place in Italy of greater interest than the Campo 
Santo. Its treasures have often been described; but 
description can convey only an imperfect impression of 
the solemn beauty and sacred interest of the place. All 
its frescoes have suffered from the injuries of weather, 
and the worse injuries of re-painting ; many of them are 
almost obliterated, many have been shattered by careless 
work upon the building, many broken away to give place 
to worthless modern sepulchral monuments ; some are 
patched with bits of coarse raw plaster, or clamped with 
bands of iron that interrupt their finest passages ; yet they 
still retain enough of outline and of color to indicate what 



10 • TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

they must once have been, and to give a strong impres- 
sion of the character and motives of their authors. Nor 
is their interest only that of works of genius. In this 
consecrated burial-place, these pictures were to prepare 
the soul for life and for Heath. They were not the vain 
imaginings of the fancy, not for mere delight of the eyes, 
but they were representations of the deepest and most 
essential realities. It is in them that one may find the 
religious ideas of the Middle Ages exhibited in their 
most impressive forms ; and, spite of all grotesqueness of 
arrangement, deficiency of drawing, ignorance of compo- 
sition, and absence of the graces of a later age, it is from 
them that one may learn the power of an art, which, 
though it embodies crude and false religious notions, does 
so with a simple and sincere faith. In seeing these fres- 
coes, one feels that the picturce ecclesiarum were indeed 
in those times the libri laicorum,. The lessons they 
taught were easily learned, and the stories they told were 
too plain to be misunderstood. 

There are few places which are so harmonious in their 
character with the works of Art they contain as this 
Campo Santo. The cloistered aisles paved with sepul- 
chral slabs, — the sun falling through the Gothic tracery 
of the arches, and casting down dark shadows upon the 
effigies of crusaders and religious men, worn with the 
steps of centuries, — the relics of ancient sculpture, and of 
Middle- Age carvings, placed around the lower walls, — 
the sarcophagi in which the ashes of kings have lain, — 
the chains that marked the ancient servitude of Pisa, now 
restored by Florence, and hung up here, where jealousies 



THE CATHEDRAL BUILDINGS AT PISA. 11 

and rivalries are to be forgotten, — the consecrated earth 
from Palestine, covered with the greenest grass, — the 
dark cypress, the closed-in quiet and solitude, — all give 
to this Campo Santo that solemnity and beauty of aspect, 
that air of peacefulness and repose, which befit the 
burial-place where a city has laid its chosen dead for 
more than five hundred years. 

There is one other scene in Pisa of such great beauty 
that it deserves to be remembered even with the cathe- 
dral buildings. It is the Lung' Arno at sunset. The 
sun goes down behind the Ponte a Mare and the Torre 
Guelfa. The heavy, irregular arches of the bridge, and 
the tall, square mass of the tower, stand out against the 

j red sky, and are reflected in the rapid water. On the 

! southern bank stands the little gem-like chapel of the 
Spina, — its white marble pinnacles, crockets, and finials 
catching something of the sunset glow. On the other 
bank is the line of houses and palaces, conspicuous among 
which is that which bears the chain over its door, and 
the words, " Alia Giornata," cut on the block from which 
it hangs. To the north and east, miles away, the moun- 

\ tains rise blue above the city, their snow-tipped summits 

! tinged with a golden rose-color. And 

" On the surface of the fleeting river 
The wrinkled image of the city lay, 

Immovably unquiet, and forever 
It trembles, and it does not pass away." 



12 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Florence, 16th Dec, 1855, Sunday. 
For some days past, notice has been given, by a pla- 
card posted at the church-doors, and in other places, that 
to-day the Compagnia della Misericordia (the Brother- 
hood of Mercy) would visit the church of the Santissima 
Vergine Annunziata, the protectress of Florence, to ren- 
der solemn thanks to her for having delivered the city 
from the scourge of cholera. This Compagnia is one of 
the most remarkable institutions, and this church one of 
the most interesting churches of Florence. The church 
derives its name from a wonderful picture, in which the 
head of the Virgin is said to have been painted by angels 
while the artist slept, and which was formerly venerated 
for its miracle-working power throughout Northern Italy. 
The picture is not shown except on occasion of the 
most solemn ceremonies. It is usually kept covered by 
a veil, upon which is painted a head of the Saviour by 
Andrea del Sarto. The cortile in front of the church 
contains several frescoes by the same artist, and over the 
door of the cloisters at its side is his famous Madonna del 
Sacco, which, although faded, and otherwise injured by 
time, still retains enough beauty to justify its ancient 
reputation, and to place it among the finest works of this 
unhappy painter. The chapel of the Virgin, overloaded 
with the rich gifts and votive offerings of her worship- 
pers, is decorated with lilies, which are at once the device 
of the city and the emblem of its protectress. Round 
about it burn forty-two lamps of silver ; and no chapel in 
Florence is more brilliant, or more frequented. The 
worship of the Virgin seems now to be at its height in 



LA COMPAGNIA DELLA MISERICORDIA. 13 

Italy, * and her churches and chapels are everywhere 
receiving new honors. 

* That the Virgin has long been the chief object of worship among 
the common people in Italy is notorious, and the present Pope has 
done much to increase the devotion to her. Since the dogma of the 
Immaculate Conception was pronounced, this devotion has prevailed 
to a greater extent than ever before, and becomes, apparently, more 
and more exclusive. The present condition of Christianity in Italy is 
one of the most striking and sad of the many sad aspects that she 
presents. In a little book of services for the use of the devout at 
this church of the Most Holy Maria Annunziata, it is said that the 
Pope, by his Brief of the 10th of July, 1854, has conceded an indul- 
gence of three hundred days to whoever shall recite devoutly the fol- 
lowing prayer: — 

A Voi, Vergine Madre, 
Che mai foste tocca, 
Da reo alcun di colpa 
Ne attuale ne originale 
Raccomando ed affido, 
La purita del mio cuore. 

The pamphlet closes with a hymn of praise to the Virgin, of an 
extraordinary character. It reminds one of a political song. It will 
hardly bear translation: its first stanza is as follows: — 

Or V Inno s' innalzi, 
Del fervido Evviva, 
Che dolce alia riva 
Dell' Arno echeggio. 

Sul labbro devoto, 

Continovo sia, 
Ewiva Maria, e chi la creb, 
Evviva 1' Angelo, chi P annunzio. 

Eleven stanzas of a similar nature succeed to this, all ending with 
the same burden; and to the recitation of this hymn, also, Pius 
IX. has annexed an indulgence of three hundred days. 



14 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Some time before three o'clock, which was the hour 
fixed for the departure of the procession of the Misericor- 
dia from its chapel at the corner of the Via della Morte, 
in the square of the Duomo, the streets in the neighbor- 
hood of the Annunziata, and the piazza in front of it, 
were filled by crowds of people desirous to see the show, 
and to gain even a distant share in the blessing that 
might attend the performance of the ceremony. The 
church was already filled to overflowing, except the por- 
tion of it which was reserved for the Brotherhood. A lit- 
tle after three the procession began to appear, walking up 
a pathway opened for it by soldiers. At its head were 
several priests in their robes, one bearing a cross ; then 
followed the brethren in their long black dresses and 
black masks, which are so familiar to every one who has 
been in Florence, their faces wholly concealed, except 
where their eyes appear through narrow slits. Their 
black hats hung upon their backs, and each man carried 
in his hand an unlighted candle. They walked two and 
two ; and it was only by differences in their gait, and now 
and then by some stray lock of hair, or by some wrinkle 
seen through the opening in the black mask, that the 
difference of age amongst them could be discovered, 
— while by the contrast in the character of their hands 
something of the diversity of their callings in life might 
be guessed at ; for this Brotherhood of Mercy includes 
in its ranks young and old, noblemen and mechanics, — 
and distinctions disappear beneath its black hoods. 

The popular tradition in regard to the origin of the 
Misericordia, taken from a book written in the sixteenth 



LA COMPAGNIA DELL A MISERICORDIA. 15 

century, by Messer Francisco Ghislieri, a citizen of Flor- 
ence, is as follows : — 

"It was in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1240. 
At this time the city of Florence and her citizens were 
engaged in the traffic of merchandise, or rather in deal- 
ings in woollen cloths, which, by their excellence of fabric, 
supplied all the cities of the world, so that two fairs were 
held every year, on St. Simon's and St. Martin's days, at 
each one of which were present the richest merchants of 
Italy, who came from abroad to provide themselves with 
all sorts of stuffs. And so great a sale was there, that 
the least that was spent at each one of those fairs was fif- 
teen or sixteen millions of the florins of this city. Where- 
fore many porters and carriers of burdens were needed 
to carry the aforesaid cloths and wools to and from the 
shops, the dye-houses, and wash-houses, and other places 
needful to the making of these goods, all for the greater 
convenience of the workmen who were engaged in the 
forementioned manufacture. Now the greater number 
of these porters used to assemble on the piazza of San 
Giovanni, or of Santa Maria del Fiore, as a place as- 
signed to them by the Republic of Florence, to await 
there the opportunities of employment, which continually 
occurred. On this place was a range of vaults, supposed 
to belong to the Adimari, which stood always open, on 
account of being subject to inundation. These cellars 
the porters made use of for shelter, especially in the 
winter, against the rain and the rigor of the cold, col- 
lecting around the fire, and amusing themselves with 
play, when they had no work to do, which, indeed, oc- 



16 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

curred but rarely. It happened that among the seventy 
or eighty porters who assembled there, was one Piero di 
Luca Borsi, a man advanced in years, who held in de- 
vout regard the most holy name of God, and who was 
greatly scandalized at hearing every little while the 
Maker of Every Good abused by the blasphemies of 
his wicked companions. He therefore resolved, as their 
elder, to propose to them that every time any one of 
them should dare to utter blasphemies against God, or 
against his Most Holy Mother, he should immediately 
without fail put a bit of copper coin into a box destined 
to this object, in penitence for his fault, and in order ut- 
terly to root out so pernicious an abuse and so grave a 
sin. The proposition pleased his companions, who prom- 
ised to adopt it, and so maintain it that it might result 
to the greater glory of the Divine Majesty.* 

" Much time having passed with this devout custom, 
and a good sum of money having accumulated in the 
box, it seemed well to Piero di Luca to make another 
proposition to them, which might be of no less profit than 
the tost, since it was to serve for the benefit both of soul 
and body. He proposed to them to make six dresses 



* Old institutions appear under new conditions. The following 
paragraph was published in the New York Evening Post, in June, 
1859, in the summary of news from California: — 

" An ' Anti-Cursing Club ' has been formed at Grass Valley, Cal., 
the members of which are fined twenty-five cents for every oath, 
the money to be appropriated to some worthy purpose from time 
to time. At the last accounts, the club had cursed enough to buy 
a pew, and there was a balance on hand." 



LA COMPAGNIA DELLA MISERICORDIA. 17 

with masks, large enough to fit a person of common 
height and size, and to allot one to each section of the 
city, choosing one or more porters who should wear it 
from week to week, and should receive from the box a 
giulio * for each journey that they might make through 
the city, in order to carry to such place as they might 
wish, or to the hospitals, the sick poor, as well as those 
who might fall from buildings, or might fall dead or faint- 
ing, and those murdered, and those who might be found 
in the streets in any condition that needed human aid. 
The wise proposition and good counsel of Piero pleased 
all his companions, who swore carefully to observe, and 
with all diligence and charity to maintain this project. 
And it was also agreed by them to do so without receiv- 
ing the pay proposed ; for the reward of charity is to be 
required in the other life, from the hands of God, who 
recompenses each man justly. Thus for the space of 
many years they continued to engage in this exercise of 
mercy, with such applause from the citizens, that, had 
they wished to accept great sums of money, which were 
offered to them, they might have gained as much as three 
giuli each time they went out, if their excellent leader, 
Piero, had not refused them, in the hope of winning an 
eternal blessing. 

" At this time the above-named Piero passed to the 
other life, and another of them was moved by a divine 
inspiration to provide a picture of Christ Dead, at whose 
feet he placed a little box, with an inscription upon it, 



* A small silver coin. 



18 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

which said, ' Give alms for the poor, sick, and needy 
of the city,' and to put this, with the picture of Christ 
Dead, near to the church of San Giovanni,* on the day 
of Pardon, which falls on the 13th of January. His 
thought was to make use of the money in buying some 
chambers for a chapel for the use of the Company, that 
they might there make prayers, and discourse of the 
affairs pertaining to this pious exercise of mercy. His 
good thought was finally approved by all, and so put 
in practice, that on that day so many devout people 
united in giving alms, that the little box was not large 
enough to hold all the money that was offered by the 
faithful at the feet of the Saviour for the poor and 
distressed ; so that they found about five hundred flor- 
ins, which were enough to buy some chambers above 
the vaults that have been spoken of, and to arrange them 
for the use of the Company." 

This quaint tradition, which even in its form bears 
the mark of age, may or may not contain the true ac- 
count of the beginning of the Misericordia. It is well 
to believe a story which reflects so truly the national 
pride of the Florentines, representing the goods of their 
city as the best, her fairs as the most frequented, and her 
very porters as the worthiest of the time, — and which 
gives such a vivid illustration of the power of pictures, 
when men painted them from their hearts, and the 
figure of the Saviour stood for the real image of Him 



# Dante's " II mio bel San Giovanni," now the Baptistery of Flor- 
ence, with the bronze gates by Andrea Pisano and Ghiberti. 



LA COMPAGNIA DELLA MISERICORDIA. 19 

who died on the Cross. Those were the days when 
Florence was capable of the noblest things, — the days 
just before Dante's time, just before Giotto began to 
build his Campanile. What is certain in regard to the 
Company is, that its earliest records are lost, but that in 
1361 a new body of statutes was adopted for its govern- 
ment, and that still earlier, in 1348, during the terrible 
plague, made famous by Boccaccio, which in the course 
of six months carried off more than half the population 
of the city, that is, more than fifty thousand out of its 
ninety thousand inhabitants, this brotherhood had so dis- 
tinguished themselves by their self-devotion and their 
fidelity to duty in the season of hardest trial, and had 
so gained the attachment of their fellow-citizens, that 
their treasury was enriched by legacies amounting to 
thirty-five thousand golden florins, a sum equal to at 
least three hundred thousand dollars at the present day. 

From this time the sphere of their charities went on 
continually enlarging. They no longer took charge of 
the sick and the dead alone, but large sums were an- 
nually set apart for clothing the naked, liberating pris- 
oners, and giving dowries to poor maidens. They also 
took charge of children who were abandoned by their 
parents, and it would appear from some of the early 
records that they paid for the bringing up of the chil- 
dren in different trades. The Florentine statutes, towards 
the end of the fourteenth century, order that all wander- 
ing and lost children should be carried to the House of 
the Misericordia ; and as a proof of the estimation in 
which the Company was held, it is mentioned that in 1365 



20 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the monks of Camaldoli petitioned that the great chapel 
of the new church they were building in Florence might 
receive its title from the Misericordia, and that the church 
might be one of those where once a year, on the day of 
Santa Lucia, the Company caused the Mass of the Aban- 
doned to be celebrated. * 

In 1363, a new pestilence gave occasion for fresh dis- 
plays of the good works of the Brotherhood and the 
gratitude of the people. A curious story remains to 
show the uprightness of the spirit by which the Company 
was ruled. It appears that in those days, when the 
wicked believed that by a pious legacy they might gain 
absolution for their crimes, one Neri Boscoli, a banker, 
who had passed many years in Naples, made the Miseri- 
cordia the heir to his great property, which report said 
had been gained by evil usury. The Company, fearing 
lest it might become, as it were, the accomplice and the 
heir of wickedness, if it should receive ill-gained money, 
called to their council the most famous theologians of the 
city, and did not accept the legacy until it was determin- 
ed, in a solemn and extraordinary assembly, that it might 

* The Mass of the Abandoned is a mass said for the souls of those 
who, from poverty or other cause, have been unable to provide for the 
masses to be said for their repose after death, or have left no friends 
by whom this pious charge may be undertaken, and, thus " aban- 
doned," need the aid of charity. Dante affords many illustrations of 
this doctrine of the Church: for example: — 

" Io fui di Montefeltro, i' son Buonconte : 
Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura, 
Perch' io vo tra costor con bassa fronte." 

Purg. V. 88. 



LA COMPAGNIA DELLA MISERICORDIA. 21 

be received for use in works of charity, because thus 
that could be returned to the poor which had been un- 
justly taken from them, — with the additional provision, 
that restitution should be made to all who could prove 
that they had suffered from the usury of which this lega- 
cy was the result. 

During the unhappy period when Cosmo de' Medici 
was ruling and corrupting Florence, the Misericordia, of 
which he was jealous, as a body possessing too much 
power over the affections of the citizens, and as likely to 
act by itself too independently, was gradually deprived 
of its ancient statutes, and forced to accept essential 
changes of organization. By degrees it lost its old char- 
acter, its funds were misused in lavish profusion and 
worthless bounties, the patrimony of the poor became 
the plunder of the rich, and only the memory of the good 
name of the Company remained. But, sixteen years 
after the death of Cosmo, in 1480, an incident occurred 
which revived the half-extinguished flame of charity, and 
gave new existence to the Brotherhood. It appears that 
a very poor man died, and no one came to bury him. 
Then one who lived in the same house took the body 
upon his shoulders, and carried it to the Palace of the 
Signoria.* The Gonfalonier, at the sight of this specta- 
cle, said, struck with wonder, " What is this ? " " Be- 
hold," replied the man, " the result of the neglect of the 
laws, and of good customs ! " And leaving the corpse at 
the feet of the magistrate, he went away. This circum- 

* Now called the Palazzo Vecchio. 



22 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

stance caused a great commotion among the people. 
They recalled the good old times, when, if the poor man 
had no friends to bury him decently, the Misericordia 
took charge of his funeral, and bore him to the grave 
with prayers and all the offices of religion. They re- 
membered and repeated the good deeds of the Brother- 
hood in tending the sick and providing for the needy, 
and they lamented that it no longer existed. Not long 
after this, it was determined to reconstitute the Society, 
and in 1489 new statutes were established, and the 
Misericordia once more began its unending work. The 
number of the brothers was fixed at seventy-two, thirty 
priests and forty-two laymen ; and this number was 
chosen, " inasmuch as our Lord Jesus Christ, besides 
his apostles, instituted and ordained seventy-two disciples, 
who were to go through the world with charity, preach- 
ing and scattering the seed of his doctrine ; so we wish 
that the aforesaid number of our fraternity and company, 
seventy-two, should go through our land of Florence, ex- 
ercising the works of mercy and charity, and especially 
in regard to the burying of the poor and wretched dead,* 
without any pay or reward, but only for the love of 
Jesus Christ, who, through love of us, underwent his 
death and passion." 

The Company was not reorganized too soon. In 1495 
the plague once more appeared in Florence, again in 



* In respect to this particular injunction in regard to the burying 
of the poor, the importance attached by the Roman Church to the 
funeral rites is to be remembered. 



\ 

LA COMPAGNIA DELLA MISERICORDIA. 23 

1498, and still again in 1509. In all these years, the 
Misericordia discharged its part with its ancient fidelity 
and courage, and added to its other cares that of a hospi- 
tal, in which the brothers took charge of the sick. Dur- 
ing the last dark years in which Florence retained even 
the name of a republic, from 1520 to 1530, pestilential 
diseases seem to have broken out from year to year, and 
to have kept pace with civil discord and political calami- 
ties. But the bitterness of party rage found no place 
under the dark gowns of the Misericordia, and political 
enmities never interfered with the discharge of the offices 
of charity. The Company survived the fall of the city, 
and from that time, for the last three hundred years, has 
pursued its unintermitting course of benevolence, — some- 
times called on for special exertion, never without duties, 
ready for all seasons of trial, never failing, never disap- 
pointing the confidence reposed in it. 

The present organization of the Misericordia is as 
follows : — There are seventy-two chiefs of the watch, 
of whom ten are dignitaries of the Church, fourteen 
noble laymen, called freemen, twenty priests, not digni- 
taries, and twenty-eight laymen, not noble, called wear- 
ers of aprons, or artisans ; and these preside, four every 
day, over the arrangement and good order of the expe- 
ditions to be made through the city. In addition to these, 
who form the body of the Company, there are numerous 
novices and volunteers enrolled under different titles ; so 
that the whole number of the members now amounts to 
1440, a number sufficient to meet all the usual demands 
upon the Society. The members take their turns of ser* 



24 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. - 

vice in a regular succession of days ; and whenever they 
are needed, they are called to assemble at the house of the 
Society by a bell, whose tolling may be heard over all the 
city. A day scarcely ever passes without its solemn 
summons being sounded. The members on duty collect 
at their place of meeting, and, putting on their black 
gowns and masks, depart together, generally bearing upon 
their shoulders a bier hung also with black. As they 
pass along the streets, every one who meets them lifts 
his hat, and the soldiers on guard present arms in token 
of honor. Having accomplished their duty, they return 
to their chapel, and, in entering it, each says to the one 
at his side, " May God give you your reward ! " Then, 
after saying the Lord's Prayer, they take off their dis- 
guise, and return to their usual occupations. 

In the year that is just going out, Florence has been 
exposed to great trial, and the Misericordia has given 
fresh proofs of its devotion, and of the value of its pious 
services. The cholera broke out early in the summer. 
At the commencement of the epidemic, the Company 
called together its members with the accustomed sound 
of its bell. But the tolling became so frequent that it 
increased the alarm which the disease created. Then 
the members assembled in numbers at their chapel, and 
stood waiting in readiness for the calls, which were not 
long delayed. On one day seventy-seven biers were 
counted, borne by them through the city. The number 
of members at last became too small for the increasing 
need, and a hundred temporary assistants were added. 
There was no pause in their indefatigable labors. 



LA COMPAGNIA DELLA MISERICORDIA. 25 

"With the danger their courage increased," says the 
account from which a great part of the preceding 
narrative has been taken ; * " and during this period, 
the Company of the Misericordia showed itself not only 
admirable, but sublime." 

It was to render thanks for the ceasing of the epidemic 
that the Brotherhood went in procession to-day to the 
Church of the Annunziata. Remembering the long se- 
ries of years, stretching back from century to century, 
through which this society has carried on its unbroken 
course of benevolence, recalling the principles upon which 
it was founded, seeing in it the visible token of the desire 
of men to conform themselves to the example of Christ, 
beholding in its mask the sign of that humility which 
desires not to have its good deeds known of men, it 
was impossible to stand by unmoved, as the procession 
passed ; and one could not but feel a thrill of sympa- 
thetic pleasure in the pride with which poor Florence 
regards these sons of hers, who do so much to keep up 
one of the best traditions of her Past. 

* La Oompagnia delta Misericordia di Firenze. Cenni Storici di 
Celestino Bianchi. Firenze, 1855. 

See also Passerini, Storia degli Stabilimenti di Beneficenza e d 1 Is- 
truzione elementare gratuita della Citta di Firenze. 1853. 



ROME. 



ROME. 



Eome, 24th December, 1855. 
Stendhal begins the Roman entries in his brilliant 
" Promenades dans Rome " with the following words : 
" C'est pour la sixieme fois que j'entre dans la ville 
eternelle, et pourtant mon coeur est profondement agite. 
C'est un usage immemorial parmi les gens affectes d'etre 
^mu en arrivant a Rome, et j'ai presque honte de ce que 
je viens d'ecrire." 

9th January, 1856. 

Three days ago, the old Prince Corsini died, and to- 
day his body has been lying in state in the great palace 
of his family. It was in this palace that Christina, Queen 
of Sweden and daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, died. 

To-day the doors have been open, and every one who 
desired has been admitted to see the state apartments 
and the dead Prince. All sorts of persons have been 
going up the magnificent double flight of stairs, — ladies 
and gentlemen, poor women with their babies in their 
arms, priests, soldiers, ragged workmen, boys and girls, 
and strangers of all kinds. There were no signs of 



30 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

mourning about the house, but in the first great saloon 
sat two men in black gowns, busily employed in writing, 
as if making inventories ; and in each of the next two 
rooms were two priests in their showy robes, performing 
separate masses, while many people knelt on the floors, 
and others streamed through to the apartment in which 
the corpse was laid out. Here, on a black and yellow 
carpet, in the middle of the floor, surrounded by benches 
which were covered with a black cloth on which was a 
faded yellow pattern of a skeleton with a scythe, lay the 
body of the old man. He was eighty-nine years old ; but 
here was nothing of the dignity of age, or the repose of 
death. The corpse was dressed in full court-costume, — in 
a bright-blue coat, with gold laces and orders upon the 
breast, white silk stockings, and varnished pumps. It had 
on a wig, and its lips and cheeks were rouged. At its feet 
and at its head was a candle burning ; two hired mourners 
sat at each side, and two soldiers kept the crowd from 
pressing too near or lingering too long. The room, which 
was not darkened, was hung with damask of purple and 
gold, and the high ceiling was painted with gay frescoes of 
some story of the gods. It was a scene fit for the grave- 
digger's grim jokes and Hamlet's sad philosophy. 

Many years ago, Prince Corsini held the office of Sen- 
ator of Rome, and at the time of his election the lions 
of the Capitol and the Barberini Triton spouted wine 
instead of water, as when Rienzi was made Tribune ; but 
the Prince's name will hardly be remembered by another 
generation, unless it be by the readers of Landor's " Im- 
aginary Conversations." 



ROME. 31 

The palace has that air of incomplete magnificence 
and partial neglect which belongs to so many of the pal- 
aces of Rome, and of the South. There are statues in 
the halls, but the tiled floors are coarse and damp, the 
large windows are filled with rattling and dim glass. 
Painted wooden columns are set up opposite marble ones. 
The beautiful garden, stretching behind the palace toward 
the Janiculum, has been left to decay. Its iron gate is 
rusted, its regular walks overgrown with mould and green 
moss. Its alleys, arched over with myrtles, are weedy 
and dark and damp. Everything wears a look of dilap- 
idation, and the sentiment of the place is that belonging 
to declining splendor and neglected beauty. 

In the evening, a showy funeral procession, with car- 
riages, and long trains of priests with candles and chant- 
ing, accompanied the body of the Prince to the church of 
St. John Lateran, where, in the gorgeous family chapel, 
it was once more laid in state, as a show for indifferent 
spectators. His servants for the last time rouged the 
w r rinkled cheeks, and arranged the dyed moustaches, and 
then left the body to the care of the priests, w r ho. sat 
drowsily reading their services over it. The chapel 
itself was not brilliantly lighted, though it appeared so 
by contrast with the rest of the church. A few candles 
were burning at the high altar, but their rays were soon 
scattered in the immense spaces of the nave and aisles. 
Now and then, some attendant, with a candle in his hand, 
passed across, — his light making the surrounding dark- 
ness darker, and the distance more obscure. In this 
dimness, the vastness of the church became far more 



32 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

impressive than in the daylight. The fluttering statues 
in the piers lost their air of dressiness and disquiet, and 
looked down from their niches like the peaceful shades 
of Saints and Apostles. 

13th January, 1856, Sunday. 
The annual festival called the Festa delle Lingue has 
taken place at the Propaganda to-day. This college was 
founded by Pope Gregory XV., in 1622, under the im- 
pulse, as it seems, of a sincere Christian spirit. In his 
bull relating to the institution he said : " Christ's charge 
to the successors of Peter is, ' Feed my lambs.' But 
how many strayed sheep still remain, — sheep who have 
never known the fold of Christ, or who have wandered 
away from it ! " And it was to accomplish this charge, 
so far as lay within his power, that the Pope established 
a college into which students from distant infidel or here- 
tic countries were to be received, and whence, having 
been instructed in the doctrines of the Church, they were 
to go out as missionaries to their native lands. Gregory 
died before his institution had received its full develop- 
ment ; but it was warmly supported by his successor, 
Urban VIII., from whom it took its name of the Collegio 
Urbano de Propaganda Fide ; and from that time until 
the present it has flourished under the protection of suc- 
cessive popes. During the past year, one hundred and 
,hirty-three pupils, from every quarter of the world, have 
received instruction within its walls. Italian is made the 
common language of communication and instruction, but 
each of the pupils is required to keep up his acquaintance 



ROME. 33 

with his native tongue, that he may preserve the power to 
address his own countrymen. 

Once a year, on the octave of the Epiphany, an ex- 
hibition is held, at which the pupils recite compositions 
upon the same subject, but each in a different language. 
It is always an occasion of interest, and to-day the little 
chapel of the Propaganda, which is in the large and ugly 
brown building forming one end of the Piazza di Spagna, 
where the College has its seat, was crowded by an audi- 
ence which seemed composed of persons of almost as 
many nations as were represented by the pupils. The 
chapel is badly arranged and badly lighted. It is hung 
with red and yellow curtains, and pervaded, if one may 
use the expression, by an absence of simplicity and good 
taste. The pupils were placed upon a platform at its 
end. Immediately in front sat two or three cardinals 
and the instructors, while all the rest of the room was 
filled by the spectators, amongst whom a few of the 
Sw r iss guard were stationed to keep the passage-ways 
from being choked up. The services were commenced 
without any special form and with no ceremony. One 
of the pupils delivered a short prologue in Italian, from 
which it appeared that the subject which had been chosen 
for the compositions of to-day was the miraculous escape 
from injury of the Pope and many other distinguished 
ecclesiastics, together with a portion of the students of 
the Propaganda, in the giving way of the floor of a room 
in the convent of Sant' Agnese fuori le Mura, in which 
they were assembled. The accident took place last April. 
The Pope had gone out in the morning to visit the re- 



34 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

cently discovered church of Sant' Alessandro, and on his 
return had stopped at the unoccupied convent of Sant' 
Agnese. Here there was a considerable assemblage of 
persons, including those who had accompanied him, and 
others who here joined his suite. The floor of the room 
in the second story in which they were collected suddenly 
gave way. Most of the company fell with the floor ; the 
Pope was overthrown, but not precipitated to the lower 
story. Several persons were more or less injured ; there 
was a scene of great confusion, but no one was killed or 
irrecoverably hurt. In the performance of this after- 
noon, the escape of the Pope, and the comparatively 
slight harm caused by the accident, were ascribed to the 
miraculous interposition of the Virgin, and, in addition to 
her favor, to the good offices of the three holy Magi, who 
are regarded as the special patrons of the Propaganda. 
Their relation to this institution arises from the belief 
that the visit of the three kings to the manger, and their 
adoration of the Infant Saviour, were typical of the final 
subjection of all heathen nations to the throne of Christ. 
The legend of the Church represents them as returning 
from Bethlehem to their own distant lands as the 
first missionaries of the gospel of Christ, and their 
story has from very early times been considered as 
significant of the calling of the Gentiles. They are, 
therefore, regarded as the patron saints of missionary 
enterprise. 

The prologue in Italian was followed by a series of 
performances in the Eastern languages, and, for the ben- 
efit of those who understood only the common tongues, a 



EOxME. 35 

programme in Italian was distributed which contained an 
abstract of the different parts. The first was in Hebrew, 
upon the delight of Satan at the danger of the Pope and 
of the pupils. The next was in Chaldee, a dialogue be- 
tween two young men from Mesopotamia ; and this was 
followed by parts in Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, Chinese, 
Georgian, Bengalee, and so on, each spoken, with very 
few exceptions, by young men to whom these languages 
were their native tongues. The Persian, for instance, 
was delivered by Signor Luigi Sciauriz, of Mardin in 
Mesopotamia, and the Koptic by Angelo Kabis, of Ach- 
min in Egypt ; Mardin and Achmin being places which 
it is hard to believe have as actual a reality as those 
which we hear of every day, and in the midst of which 
we live. In the second portion of the exhibition, the 
portion that was made up of parts in the Western 
tongues, occurred some more familiar names. For in- 
stance, a boy named Thomas Pinckney, from Walter- 
borough, U. S., took a share in an Italian dialogue, 
and Thomas Beeker, of Pittsburg, delivered an animated 
poem in Irish. Most of the parts were in verse ; but it 
would have been dull work to listen to them, had they all 
been in one language. In the sounds of thirty-seven differ- 
ent languages it was easy to find entertainment ; and in the 
sight of young men from so many countries, united in one 
common object and mode of life, there was interest enough 
to overbalance their individual dulness. It would have 
been hard to find a subject less suited for the average of 
poetic and oratorio power than the one chosen for this 
display ; and it was a curious specimen of bad taste and 



36 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

bad judgment that such a topic should have been selected 
for a commemoration that might be made so striking by a 
proper choice. On one occasion, not many years since, 
the subject given out was " The Tower of Babel," or the 
confusion of tongues. A more appropriate topic could 
hardly have been found. 

January 20th, 1856. 

The Festa of Sant' Antonio commenced three days 
ago, at his little church just beyond Santa Maria Mag- 
giore, and will continue for two or three days longer. It 
is the occasion of one of the most curious customs of the 
Church, — the blessing of the animals. Sunday is gen- 
erally the day upon which the ceremony may be seen to 
most advantage, for then the country people have leisure 
to come into the city with their horses and other creatures 
to get the blessing of the priest ; but to-day has been 
gray and wet from the beginning, so as to prevent as 
large an attendance as usual. This afternoon, a good 
many people were in the church, looking at the coarse 
frescoes which represent the temptations of the Saint, and 
there was something of a crowd, chiefly made up of boys 
and beggars, about the doors. At the side door, just out 
of the rain, stood a good-natured, dirty-looking priest, with 
a brush in his hand and an earthen jug full of water at 
his side, who, when a carriage or a wagon drove up or 
passed by, shook his brush, dipped in the holy water, at 
the horses, and muttered some words of benediction. A 
good many of the country carts came along and stopped 
at the door ; their drivers gave the priest a little fee for 
shaking his brush, and then went on. Many of the car- 



ROME. 37 

riages came, apparently, to bring persons who wanted to 
see the show, if by chance there were any ; but others 
were brought up with the express purpose of getting a 
blessing for the horses, which was paid for according to 
the wealth of the owner, or perhaps according to his 
superstition or his love of display. It is a rule here, that 
those blessings which we are accustomed to consider the 
free gifts of God must be paid for in some way, either in 
hard money or in harder penance. Heaven is not given 
away in Rome. The Pope himself, the cardinals, and 
the nobles, all send their horses, during the course of the 
feast, to be blessed. Torlonia sends his best carriage 
drawn by eighteen horses. The coachmen are in their 
best liveries, and the footmen splendid in powder and 
lace. It is said he pays a thousand dollars for the 
benediction. 

Beside the wagons and carriages that came this after- 
noon, (the air was so gray and thick that one could not 
see the Alban Hills,) there were a good many horses and 
donkeys ridden up one by one, or sometimes two or three 
together. Some of them had ribbons braided in their 
tails and manes, and hanging about them in streamers, 
and their riders looked as fine as the horses ; while others 
were such rough, uncared-for, bare-boned, worn-looking 
creatures, that one could not but wish that the blessing 
would turn into a good supper and shelter for them. 
This odd custom is a very old one, and strikingly illus- 
trative of the character of many of the observances cher- 
ished by the Church in Italy, as means by which the 
superstition of the poor may be turned to the benefit of 



38 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the priests. I say the superstition of the poor, though 
Torlonia's thousand dollars may outweigh all the pence 
of the peasants ; for such a custom can last only while it 
is founded on the popular belief. If the poor should 
learn to distrust St. Anthony, and neglect to send their 
scrubby donkeys for his blessing, the princes would not 
be long in following their example. But in these States 
of the Church the progress of intelligence is stopped, and 
a spiritual police, more watchful than any municipal one, 
takes good care that it shall not, by force or by stealth, 
break through the barriers imposed upon it. 

At a little distance from the church was a thick crowd 
of children, who were making such a noise that I went to 
see what it was about. I found they were surrounding a 
man who was making and selling what looked like mo- 
lasses candy. He could not sell it fast enough for his 
customers, who squeezed him and shouted at him without 
mercy. He had a pot boiling over a fire of small sticks, 
and when his supply of the ready-made article was 
fairly exhausted, he poured out the contents of his pot 
(a mixture of honey and sugar) upon a white marble 
slab which he had upon a chair at his side, and after it 
had sufficiently cooled, he began to pull it in the same 
way in which molasses candy was pulled when we were 
young. It quickly began to change from black to white, 
and at the same time the uproar, which had somewhat 
abated while the little children were watching the pro- 
gress of the manufacture, began with redoubled energy. 
The smallest boys crept between his legs and stuck up 
their eager heads, with a h&lf-haiocco in their hands, in 



ROME. 39 

the hope of getting a chance at one of the pieces of a fin- 
ger's length that he broke off from the long stringy mass. 
Little girls carrying babies, big boys who with a whole 
baiocco could buy two pieces, others who had no money 
and could only look at what they wanted to eat, all 
crowded up, shouting and laughing. Children are alike 
the world over, but these were more charming than a 
common crowd of children, for every one was full of ex- 
citement, which yet was not so intense as to threaten any 
sad revulsion of feeling. Their eyes were glittering, 
their voices raised to the highest point, their hands fuller 
of eagerness than of money ; but as one by one got his 
piece, there was such absolute sweetness in their mouths, 
such a cessation in their shouting, and such a perfect con- 
tent over their dirty, happy, pretty faces, that, in seeing 
them, the bystanders had almost as much satisfaction as 
the children themselves. It was by far the best part of 
the show of the blessing of the horses. 

A celebration has been going on for two or three days 
past at the church of Sant' Andrea delle Fratte, — one 
of the oddest and most irrational of Borromini's fantastic 
erections, — in commemoration of the miraculous conver- 
sion of a Jew that took place here in 1842. The occur- 
rence is remarkable as being one of the latest and best 
authenticated miracles of the Roman Church, and it 
affords an illustration of the origin and adoption of 
many of those miracles with which the annals of the 
Church have been full, since the apostolic days. I 
bought the authorized narrative at the church-door 



40 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

this afternoon, and this is the account which it con- 
tains : — 

" In January, 1842, a young and wealthy Jew of Stras- 
bourg, named Alfonso Maria Ratisbonne, came to Rome 
on a journey of pleasure. Here he met an old friend of 
his, the Baron de Bussierre, who was residing in Rome, 
and who accompanied him in many of his visits to the 
places which every stranger desires to see. The Baron, 
being a good Christian, was grieved to find his friend 
fixed in his belief as a Jew, and frequently urged upon 
him the arguments in favor of Christianity. One day he 
begged him to accept a medal with the effigy of Our 
Lady the Queen of the Angels upon it. Ratisbonne, 
more to satisfy his friend than to profess the least venera- 
tion for the Madonna, with a smile hung this miraculous 
medal about his neck. The Baron, rejoiced at his suc- 
cess, did not delay to address daily the most fervent 
prayers to the Most High for the conversion of his friend, 
and directed his two young daughters to recite every 
evening some Ave Marias for the conversion of Alfonso. 
Moreover, he went to the Count Laferronays, his confi- 
dant, who was most devoted and attached to the Catholic 
religion, and begged him also, with the same object, to 
address fervent prayers to the Most High, and to the 
Great Mother, the Most Holy Mary. A few days after- 
wards, Count Laferronays suddenly died. On the 20th 
of January, Bussierre met Ratisbonne, who told him that 
he was about to leave the city, his affairs not permitting 
him to make a longer stay. . The Baron, regretting to 
hear this, begged him to accompany him to the church 



ROME. 41 

of Sant' Andrea delle Fratte, whither he was about to go 
to make some arrangements with one of the friars for the 
Count's funeral. Having arrived there, he left Ratisbonne 
in the church, while he went for a few minutes into one 
of the adjoining apartments. Ratisbonne was looking at 
the objects of interest, and observing the ceremonies of 
the funeral of a noble lady, when all of a sudden the 
church disappeared and a dazzling light shone round 
about him. He was transported, without knowing how, 
before the altar of Saint Michael, where the light ceased, 
and, raising his eyes, he saw upon this very altar the Most 
Holy Mary, beautiful and shining, who with her hand 
made a sign to him to kneel down, and he, obeying, knelt. 
Bussierre, at this moment returning, saw his friend upon 
his knees and weeping. ' He asked him what was the 
matter, but Ratisbonne did not reply. Then Bussierre 
went to the College of the Propaganda, which stands just 
opposite the church, to beg some of the Jesuit Fathers to 
come with him and speak with Ratisbonne. They hast- 
ened back, and Ratisbonne, then drawing the medal from 
his breast, said, ' I have seen her ! I have seen her ! ' and 
then proceeded to give an account of the appearance of 
the Virgin, ending with the declaration of his desire to 
be baptized. And so, on the 31st of the month, he was 
baptized by the Cardinal Patrizi, and received the sacra- 
ments of Regeneration, of Confirmation, and of the Most 
Holy Communion, in the presence of a great crowd of 
people. Shortly after, he entered the order of the Jesuits 
in France, and is still living." 

This is the story, whose facts may, it seems to me, be 



42 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

fully accepted and believed, without regarding them as 
miraculous. The excitement, which no one is exempt 
from, in first visiting Rome, — the knowledge that his 
conversion was an object of desire to his friend, and the 
consequent dwelling of his own mind upon the subject, — 
the impression made upon him by the ardent and imag- 
inative fervor of Bussierre, — the superstitious feeling 
very naturally produced in a weak mind by the wearing 
of an image of the Virgin, — were enough, even if we 
exclude the operation of other very probable influences, 
such as fatigue, and the confusion of ideas to which one 
not versed in the groundwork of his own faith is exposed 
when surrounded by the exhibitions of the prevalence and 
power of another, — were enough to produce in Ratis- 
bonne a condition of the nervous system in which visions 
are no longer improbable, and credulity accepts them as 
miraculous realities. Explanations of this sort seem to 
be applicable to many of the stories of the Saints. I see 
no reason to distrust their visions, and can easily believe 
that it was only the coarser conceptions of his followers 
that changed St. Francis's vision of the Saviour, and his 
imaginative reception of the stigmata, into the five actual 
and visible wounds. Multitudes of reported miracles 
are nothing more than misunderstood natural events, and 
many a good man has believed in miracles which were 
only the result of the morbid action of his own mind. 
Over the altar on which the Virgin appeared to Ratis- 
bonne, there now hangs a picture of the Madonna as she 
looked to him. The chapel has been incrusted with the 
most precious marbles, and many votive offerings are 



ROME. 43 

hanging upon its walls. A miraculous image or picture 
is an immense advantage to a church ; and Sant' Andrea 
delle Fratte, which was formerly rather poor and de- 
serted, is now one of the most frequented and popular 
churches in this part of the city. 

There is a triduo every year in honor of the appear- 
ance of the Virgin ; and to-day, the anniversary of the 
miracle, services of great pomp have been going on from 
morning till evening. This afternoon a Dominican friar 
delivered an energetic sermon to a crowded and devout 
audience. It was an entertaining and picturesque com- 
position. He described the rich and scornful Jew, visit- 
ing one after another of the holy places in Eome to scoff 
at them, laughing at the superstitions of his friends, and 
taking pride in the power of his own intellect and the 
antiquity of his faith ; when suddenly, by the blessed in- 
terposition of the Most Holy Mother of God, all was 
changed. Then followed a long comparison of the con- 
version of Ratisbonne with that of St. Paul ; and the ser- 
mon wound up with an address to the picture of the 
Virgin, appealing to her to protect her faithful and in- 
crease their number. During this invocation, the audi- 
ence all turned toward the chapel of the miracle, and 
knelt. While the sermon was going on, the candles about 
the church had been lighted up, and the high altar 
shone with the hundreds that were arranged upon it. 
Then came some operatic sacred music ; and finally a 
benediction, pronounced by a cardinal. 



44 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

January 27th, 1856, Sunday. 

A girl took the veil this morning at the church of 
Santa Cecilia, and entered the convent of Benedictine 
nuns. 

Any one who desires to retain his imaginations of what 
this solemn and affecting scene might be should not go 
to witness the ceremony. I did not know this, and there- 
fore went to the church to see it. In front of the baldac- 
chino a temporary altar had been erected, and rows of 
chairs extended from this down the nave, leaving an open 
space in the centre. The church was gradually filled by 
spectators, who presented the strange variety usually 
found in the Roman churches on occasion of any peculiar 
solemnity. A large portion of them were foreigners 
attracted by mere curiosity; looking at the scene as at a 
show, and giving to the place the air of a theatre. There 
were many beggars and poor children, and a few Romans 
of the better classes. The seats in front were reserved 
for the friends of the girl who was about to leave them, 
and to enter those doors which open only to admit the 
living and to dismiss the dead. After waiting for some 
time, the cardinal who was to officiate — Cardinal Brunelli 
— entered with a small train of attendants, and took his 
seat in front of the altar. Very soon afterwards the 
novice came in, dressed in a ball costume, of white satin 
and laces, and with diamonds in her hair, followed by a 
lady also in full dress, and by two little girls in white, 
with wreaths of artificial flowers on their heads, and with 
wings of painted feathers fastened by silver buckles 
upon their shoulders. The novice knelt at the cardinal's 



ROME. 45 

feet, repeated some few words, and then took a seat oppo- 
siue a temporary pulpit, into winch a priest ascended to 
deliver a sermon. It was a discourse upon the dove that 
could find no rest for her foot upon the face of the earth 
and sought for shelter within the ark. One would have 
thought that such a text, at such a time, could not but 
give occasion to words that would touch the heart ; but 
the priest was a dry old man, with a husky and broken 
voice, and he proceeded as if all feeling had left his soul 
long ago. He sat in the pulpit, and made up his sermon 
of the emptiest commonplaces regarding the dangers and 
miseries of the world, and the poorest compliments to 
those who chose to quit it, and, by withdrawing them- 
selves from its duties,- to avoid its perils. There was not 
one word of earnest exhortation, of sincere joy, or of re- 
ligious counsel. The friends of the girl were utterly 
unmoved through the whole ; she herself sat with little 
expression of feeling ; and the foreign spectators seemed 
to care only that the sermon should be finished quickly. 
When the priest had done, the girl rose and again knelt 
before the cardinal. After a few words, he raised her up, 
and they proceeded down the church to the side door, 
through which she entered into the convent. While they 
were going down the nave, a general rush took place 
among the ladies to get standing-places upon a platform 
erected in front of the grating, at which the remainder 
of the ceremony was to take place. It was an unseemly 
and indecorous scene. A few Swiss guards, in their har- 
lequin dresses, endeavored vainly to preserve some order. 
Men and women crowded and pushed each other, with no 



46 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

regard to the sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the 
occasion, or the rights of those most interested. Mean- 
while the cardinal came back, a way being with difficulty 
made for him through the crowd, and took his seat at the 
grating. In a moment the novice appeared behind it, 
accompanied by nuns in their dresses of black and white. 
The crowd was so restless that at first it was difficult to 
catch the words of the service. Behind the grate, in the 
dimness of the chapel in which the nuns stood, one could 
see that the diamonds and laces were being taken from 
her who no longer was to have use for them. Her long 
hair was cut off. The veil, a piece of white cloth, was 
put upon her head, falling down behind and at each side. 
Prayers were chanted in the nasal, singsong way in 
which prayers are said here, vows were made, the choir 
sung, the cardinal gave his blessing, the nuns flitted to 
and fro behind the grate, and the show and the service 
were over. The cardinal, on his way out of the church, 
stopped at the high altar to be disrobed, his lackeys in 
their red-lined blue coats took snuff together, and he then 
went out to the hall at the side of the convent, where the 
new-made nun was to receive the congratulations of her 
friends, and at whose door the crowd were already once 
more jamming each other. An old man distributed two 
printed sets of verses, copies of which had been posted at 
the door of the church before the service. Each con- 
tained three sonnets, " Upon occasion of the honorable 
and pious Roman maiden, Annunziata Maria Anna 
Sforza, on Sexagesima Sunday, the 27th of January, 
1856, assuming the religious dress of the Holy Bene- 



ROME. 47 

dictine Virgins, in the venerable convent of Saint Ceci- 
lia, and taking the name of Donna Maria Colomba Te- 
resa of the Precious Blood of Jesus." The sonnets 
were as unpoetical as the ceremony had been. 

In spite of all the want of feeling in the forms that 
had been gone through with, it was impossible not to 
have a profound sense of the melancholy of this cere- 
mony. Whether the nun who has now to begin her 
convent life had before been happy or unhappy, it 
was equally sad to see her, a girl, thus renounce the 
world, and confine herself within limits so narrow that 
neither the affections nor the intellect could escape being 
stunted and crushed by them. If the heart beat against 
the bare convent-wall as against prison-bars, it would but 
deaden itself the sooner. If it found at first a pleasant 
sense of repose and shelter in the convent life's dull 
round of useless daily exercises, and in the seclusion of 
the small, white, silent chambers, it could not but grad- 
ually smoulder and die away in very inanition. It im- 
plies a curious deficiency of understanding, or an equally 
strange perversion of the doctrine of Christ, that one 
meaning to be a Christian should fail to reconcile the 
love of this world with the love of God, and should seek 
by desertion to win a victory. Here is faithlessness 
assuming the garb of faith, and love seeking to grow 
more pure and strong by crushing the very affections in 
which it lives. The gospel of Christ is read back- 
wards, when that world which he came to save is re- 
garded as a world which it is a merit to abandon. 

And yet how explicable is this, explicable above all in 



48 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

a society where domestic life is so ill-understood as it is for 
the most part here, where education is so imperfect, and 
religion so overlaid with superstition ! Some souls may 
perhaps be made better, or, if not better, more comfort- 
able, by thus sheltering themselves from the cares of 
common life ; but, for one made better, how many suffer 
from want of the discipline of worldly duty ! and how 
many, shunning known temptations, fall into others, 
greater, but unsuspected ! 

After the ceremony was over, I stayed in the church. 
It is as ugly as most of the modern churches in Rome, 
— disfigured with white paint, gilding, tawdry ornaments, 
dirty, showy hangings, and tasteless offerings ; but, not- 
withstanding, these, it is one of the most interesting 
churches in the city. It is built on the site of an 
earlier church, which in its turn was erected on the 
spot upon which, according to tradition, originally stood 
the house of Saint Cecilia. The touching story of her 
life and martyrdom is one of the most interesting of the 
saintly legends of Rome. She lived and died in the 
third century, and her memory seems to have been hon- 
ored by those who knew her and had witnessed the excel- 
lence of her life and the constancy of her death. She 
was rich and beautiful and good. She so loved music, 
and sang so sweetly, that angels are said to have joined 
their voices with hers in the praise of God ; and she died 
for her faith in Christ. The chamber of her house in 
which she was martyred is said to be preserved in one of 
the chapels of her church. It was a bathing-room, and 
the ancient pipes and furnaces still exist. The floor has 



ROME. 49 

a pavement of later date, made of bits of broken marble 
and colored stone. Upon one worn block of white mar- 
ble, that had been brought from the place where it had 
originally served for the sepulchral slab of some Chris- 
tian in early times, there was the rude and half-effaced 
figure of a dove bearing an olive-branch, with the words, 
In Pace. They were the only words which remained. 
Under the high altar is a statue, which is one of the 
most affecting works of modern sculpture. It repre- 
sents the body of Saint Cecilia as it was found in her 
tomb, when it was opened in 1599, at the time of the 
modernization of the church. She is lying, upon one 
side. Her face is turned away, and a cloth is bound 
around her forehead. Her dress is perfectly simple, 
covering, but not concealing her form. Her arms are ex- 
tended, and her beautiful hands rest one upon the other ; 
her feet are bare. A little circlet round her neck seems 
to signify the mode of her death. There is an air of 
entire purity and grace about her form and position. It 
is not the statue of a living body, but it has none of the 
horror of death, — only its rest and its dignity. It is 
the statue of a noble, martyred woman, not in the an- 
guish, but in the peace of martyrdom. 

Ro&e, 21st January, 1856. 
Cornelius, the distinguished German painter, who has 
just received one of the great medals for his cartoons at 
the Paris Exposition, has been living for two years past 
in Rome. He is now an old man, but he still occupies 
himself with his art, and has lately finished a design 

4 



50 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

which his admirers regard as one of his finest works, and 
in which he himself takes a pleasant, unaffected satis- 
faction. It is now in his studio in the Palazzo Poli. 

The work is a highly finished sketch in tempera for a 
fresco, for the apse of the royal church in the burial- 
ground at Berlin. It represents the waiting for the Last 
Judgment, — the moment of expectation. The composi- 
tion is a full, but not complete one. The immense space 
to be occupied by the fresco, a space of some ninety feet 
in height, (Michel Angelo's Last Judgment is but sixty 
feet high,) affords ample room for many figures, and for 
the noblest design. Cornelius has introduced certainly 
many figures, not fewer than one hundred and twenty. 
He has drawn part of his inspiration from the book 
of Revelation, but the types of the Apocalypse are 
strangely mingled with the realities of the Gospel and 
the traditions of the Church. 

I dislike to describe pictures ; no words can convey an 
adequate idea of a painting. Still, enough can be told to 
give an impression of the feeling manifest or the intellect 
displayed in a work of Art ; and this picture seems to me 
so remarkable, as an exhibition of the character of much 
of the most applauded work of the present time, that 
I venture on a brief description. 

In the upper centre of the picture is the Saviour, 
seated in a glory surrounded and supported by seraphs. 
At his feet are the four beasts of the Apocalypse. At 
his right stands the Virgin, and opposite to her St. John 
the Baptist. Immediately above the figure of Christ, 
and forming the upper group in the picture, are a band 



EOME. 51 

of angels, bearing the instrumenfs of the passion, and on 
either side are the twenty-four elders, in white raiment, 
casting down their crowns. Beneath these, outside of the 
Virgin and of St. John, are two rows of figures, the up- 
per representing martyrs with palms in their hands, the 
lower, apostles and saints. 

Beneath the Saviour is a group of angels, of which the 
principal figure holds the not yet opened book of life, 
while the others have the trumpets of judgment in their 
hands, awaiting the signal for sounding them. Below, 
in a band stretching nearly across the picture, are the 
chief fathers of the Greek and Latin Churches. They 
rest upon a cloud, which serves, as it were, for the 
base of heaven, but is connected at each end with earth 
by aerial steps, as if to signify the union of the Church 
in glory above with the Church in conflict below. On 
these steps, at the right, ascends an angel with a cen- 
ser, from which the smoke of the incense of prayer is 
rising ; below is another angel, helping up a penitent ; 
and at the foot is still another, defending a child from 
a serpent that has wound about his leg. On the other 
side, at the head of the steps, stands the Archangel 
Michael, with his sword drawn, waiting for the order of 
execution ; at the foot, advancing toward earth, are three 
angels, one with the crown of thorns, another with the 
olive of peace, the third with the palm of victory. In 
the centre of the lower portion of the picture, between 
the two stairways of cloud, stands a bare, unadorned altar, 
surmounted by a cross. At the ends of the altar kneel 
the present King and Queen of Prussia, surrounded, 



52 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

at a little distance, by the other members of the royal 
family. 

Such is the composition, which, by some of the Ger- 
man critics here, is declared to be the most wonderful of 
the age. But if my description has been at all intelli- 
gible, it is obvious that the first essential of a great com- 
position is absent from this ; — that essential is unity. 
No common sympathetic action, or mutual relation to 
be recognized by the imagination, combines these dis- 
cordant groups into one common interest. The Last 
Judgment, however unsuitable it may be for painting, 
and although adapted only to the coarse materialism of 
the Middle Ages, is at least a subject controlled by one 
great motive. The emotions and the incidents belonging 
to it are all distinctly referable to a common end and a 
single overwhelming interest. But to attempt to repre- 
sent the moment before the Judgment, the moment before 
the action has commenced, is an attempt at once profane 
and presumptuous. The more labored and elaborate in 
detail it may be, the more inadequate it is made. This 
picture is called a work of spiritual Art ; but is it not 
rather a work of pure materialism ? 

No one ever looked at Michel Angelo's Last Judg- 
ment to have his conceptions of the awful day exalted or 
enlarged. To feel the power even of this most muscular 
of pictures, one must forget the subject, and look only at 
the separate figures as studies of anatomy and of drawing. 
One leaves the Sistine Chapel with no religious awe, with 
no sense of exaltation ; but simply with a clearer ac- 
quaintance with Michel Angelo's unparalleled force as 



ROME. 53 

a draughtsman, and the conviction that the power exerted 
by the artist produces no corresponding effect upon the 
spectator, when that power is employed upon a subject 
before which all human strength is weakness and the 
clearest human conceptions only folly and confusion. 
But when one looks at this work of Cornelius, one finds 
not even that excellence in detail which might awaken 
an interest in the separate portions of the unconnected 
whole. It possesses no beauty of color, and no such pre- 
eminence in drawing as to give it any peculiar claim to 
admiration. 

But, moreover, it is one of those pictures which have 
so far lost the characteristics of pictorial Art as to require 
an explanation in words of its meaning, — not merely 
of its meaning in details, for explanation of these is of 
course required in many of the greatest pictures, but 
explanation of its main object and purpose. However 
attentively it may be studied, it does not explain itself. 
What is the event for which all these figures are gathered 
together ? No person, no action, no gesture indicates it. 
If you have seen other pictures, you may guess that it 
has something to do with the Judgment, or you may be 
told what it is by some person who has learned. But 
who are awaiting judgment ? Are the doctors of the 
Church who sit on the cloud to escape the terrible day ? 
Is the penitent whom the angel leads up the steps al- 
ready judged and pardoned? Is Michael the Archangel 
waiting with drawn sword to descend upon the royal 
family of Prussia, who are the only people visible on 
earth ? What bold and empty absurdity to put King 



54 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Frederick William in military uniform here ! Cornelius 
may excuse himself by referring to the early masters, 
who insert the portraits of their patrons in their most sa- 
cred pictures. But there is no parallel. In the one case 
it was honest superstition combining with vanity on the 
patrons' part, that led to such a course ; but in this latter 
instance there is nothing better than a courtier's flattery 
and the degradation of an artist. 

In pictures by the old masters, where a story is 
treated in episodes, the idea of unity in the general de- 
sign is lost sight of in the desire to convey the meaning 
more strongly by the introduction of various incidents, 
sometimes disconnected in time and place with each 
other, sometimes the successive scenes of a continuous 
story. These are narratives in painting instead of in 
words, and belonged to that age when pictures supplied 
the want of books, and when the object and limits of Art 
were most imperfectly understood. But the separate 
groups in this fresco of Cornelius, although remote from 
each other in all natural relations, have no episodic char- 
acter. None of them are complete in themselves, and 
yet many have so little bearing upon the general design 
that one after another might be struck out, and no want 
would be felt. 

This picture is a type of many works of recent Art, 
and especially of some of the most celebrated of the 
present German schools. It may or may not be soon 
forgotten ; but the school of which Cornelius Kas long 
been the acknowledged head will, for some time at least, 
continue to exercise an effect more or less powerful upon 



ROME. 55 

the progress and prospects of Art. The sooner the false- 
ness of the principles upon which it has proceeded, and 
the consequent worthlessness of its results, are exposed 
and understood, the better will it be, not merely for Art, 
but for Religion. 

Two great mistakes seem to be at the foundation of its 
efforts, — one, the rejection of truth to Nature, as the sole 
source of w T orth in Art, — the other, the frequent substi- 
tution of mere intellectual force or fancy for spiritual sen- 
timent ; so that, in place of the harmonious combination 
of thought and feeling, feeling has been sacrificed, and 
the intellect itself dwarfed by its absence. Take, for in- 
stance, Kaulbach's famous picture of the Dispersion of 
the Races, as an example in which both these errors are 
peculiarly exhibited. Few pictures have been more 
praised, or more circulated by engravings in the last few 
years, than this ; and yet it would be difficult to find a 
picture, showing equal capacity on the part of the artist, 
in which essential truth to Nature was more sacrificed. 
It is a composition of powerful incongruities, and the 
power is that of exaggeration. Nor is the absence of 
truth to Nature greater than the absence of sincere feel- 
ing. It bears no marks of being an inevitable work 
of genius. It is rather a block-house of the intellect, in 
which piece after piece of study is filled up, to produce 
what is meant for a great work. The signs of inspiration 
are imitated, but its reality is not experienced.* 

* Kaulbach was the pupil of Cornelius, though now the head of 
a sect somewhat adverse to his old master. For other instances 
of his manner, see his Illustrations to Shakspeare. They are pure 
travesties. 



56 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

A striking instance is afforded by another famous Ger* 
man artist, Overbeck, of the manner in which Nature 
has been disregarded out of deference to a preconceived 
ideal. In his works one may see how a man even of 
sincere religious conviction may fail, when by misfortune 
or by fault he prefers following other men, to following 
the simple truth. Overbeck's style is founded upon that 
of the masters of the fifteenth century. Charmed, as 
every one of sensibility cannot fail to be, with the sim- 
plicity, sincerity, and fervor exhibited in the works of the 
early painters, Overbeck has tried to adopt their man- 
ner, with the idea of producing the same effect. But the 
manner of the painters of the fifteenth century was often 
shackled and cramped by difficulties which have long 
since been broken away, and by ignorance which has 
long since yielded to knowledge. They painted the best 
they knew ; their charm was not a mere charm of man- 
ner, but of character. A Fra Angelico would paint more 
angelic angels to-day than he could four hundred years 
ago, if he kept the same purity of soul that he then pos- 
sessed. The beauty and the holiness of which their pic- 
tures are fuller than any others that the world has seen 
were often rendered in spite of and not by means of their 
technical manner. Had Overbeck lived in a cloister four 
centuries ago, and painted as he does now, his pictures 
would be precious as representations of the feeling and 
the power of an artist of that early time ; but being 
painted to-day, they are only exhibitions of a talent that 
finds itself in the world out of season, and seeks its 
inspiration in the works of long past men, instead of in 



ROME. 57 

Nature, fresh and full of beauty to-day as on the day 
when God first looked upon his work and saw that it was 
good. Truth and goodness are the same in one age as in 
another, and } T et the manifestations of truth and goodness 
vary with every day and with every human soul. It 
displays a pitiful mingling of wilfulness and weakness to 
shut one's eyes to actual life and beauty, and in pietistic 
fervor to endeavor to revivify the meagre saints and mild 
Madonnas of five hundred years ago. 

It is a greatly neglected canon of Art, that no work 
founded on the principle of imitation possesses any real 
vitality or genuine worth. If a man be truly an artist, 
he will find that he has a special message to deliver, 
which cannot be expressed in old forms. It is new wine, 
and needs new bottles. 

Rome, February 10th, 1856, Sunday. 

The Accademia Tiberina holds its sessions on Sunday 
evenings, in a hall in the Palazzo dei Sabini. It is one 
of those literary academies, of which there were formerly 
so many and some so famous in Italy, and of which the 
greater number have died out or been crushed out in 
later years. There is little to be feared or to be hoped 
from them now. They would not exist, were there any 
danger of their becoming too liberal. 

This evening the large hall of the Academy was poorly 
lighted with a few oil-lamps, and a few priests and sleepy 
old gentlemen sat scattered about the room. By degrees 
the seats were slowly filled ; a few ladies came in ; a 
young man lighted up candles, so that one could see the 



58 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

dim frescoes on the walls ; two cardinals shuffled in with 
some bustle and parade ; and then the members of the 
Academy who were to take part in the evening's per- 
formances appeared from a back room, and took their 
seats upon the platform, fronting the audience. The car- 
dinals, by the way, sat before the rest of the company on 
old-fashioned gilt chairs. 

The performances commenced with the reading, by an 
architect, of a paper on the restoration of the curious 
Church of San Niccolo in Carcere. It was a good speci- 
men of the old style of academic dissertation. It was 
the sort of thing in which one might sleep through a 
century or two without harm. Beginning with Tullus 
Hostilius, a thousand years before the church was built, 
continuing through the history of republican Rome, the 
essay arrived in due time at the commencement of the 
Christian era, and finally at that of the erection of the 
church. The narrative was broken by disquisitions on 
the value of the science of archseology, on the sufferings 
of the martyrs, on the virtues of his Holiness the reign- 
ing Pope, and other more or less remote topics. Then 
came a shower of facts about the church, rattling down 
dry and hard on the heads of the audience ; and when at 
length the end arrived, it was received with undeniable 
satisfaction and applause. The subject was an interest- 
ing one, treated by an academician. 

When this discourse was finished, the President an- 
nounced the name of a young priest, who rose and recited 
a long series of Latin hexameters on the Sacrifice of Isaac. 
They might have been written two hundred years ago. 



EOME. ' 59 

The priest took his seat, and the President said, " La 
Contessa Teresa Gnoli " ; and a young lad y, who had been 
the only lady on the stage during the evening, rose and 
commenced the recitation of some verses upon the meet- 
ing of Beatrice and Laura. A delicate expression of 
sensitiveness and timidity was united with a dignified 
self-possession in her bearing and manner. Nor was the 
charm of her manner greater than the sweetness of her 
voice, the grace and dramatic energy of her gestures and 
expression, the simplicity and taste of her dress.- Her 
poem was musical, and full of that tender feeling which 
the thought of Beatrice and of Laura might well awaken 
in the heart of a sensitive Italian woman. The audience 
were brought into sympathy with her, and, in a rapture 
of delight, broke in upon her recitation with cries of 
" Cara ! " " Cara ! " " Bella ! " " Bellissima ! " She sat 
down, almost overwhelmed by the applause of her enthu- 
siastic listeners. For a moment, this one graceful woman, 
with the fire of youth and poetry, animated the old room, 
the languid audience, the pompous cardinals, and the 
decaying Academy, with a life and spirit to which they 
were little used. The Contessa Gnoli is a descendant of 
Ariosto. 

It would have been well, had the performances of the 
evening ended here ; but other poems followed. They 
were of that class which belong to a period of lifelessness, 
when originality is proscribed as a defect, imagination re- 
garded as a heresy, and the copyist of ancient forms more 
praised than the creator of new spirits. One alone was 
good as a humorous piece of social satire ; most of the 



60 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

others had the dull and musty odor of the cloister ; all 
were written by men living where liberty of speech is 
dangerous, and liberty of thought only suspiciously and 
irregularly indulged. It is, perhaps, in such a place and 
at such a period that the most verses and the least poetry 
are written. 

Everything is the subject of an ode or a sonnet, here 
in Rome. Six sonnets were written on occasion of the 
nun's taking the veil at the convent of Santa Cecilia the 
other day, — and this ceremony is not a rare one. There 
is a poetic chronicle of the commonest affairs ; and the 
history of the Pope might be traced or lost in innumera- 
ble verses. Of pure improvisation there is little. Gianni, 
who died some years since, was one of the last of the 
famous improvvisatori. An improvised sonnet of his, on 
the Death of Judas, is a most striking specimen of rapid 
composition, not merely on account of the difficulties of 
the form and the complexity of the rhyme, but still more 
from the vigor of expression, which runs, indeed, here 
and there, into excess. This sonnet has fewer faults than 
are commonly found in such hasty performances. 

Al ora che Giuda di furor satollo 

Piombo dal ramo, rapido si mosse 

II tutelar suo demone, e scontrollo, 

Battendo le ale fumiganti e rosse. 
E per la fune che pendea dal collo 

Giu nel bollor delle Tartaree fosse 

Appena con le forti unghie avventollo, 

Che arser le carni e sibilaron le osse. 
E giunto nell' ignivoma bufera, 

Lo stesso orribil Satana fu visto 



ROME. 61 

L' accigliata spianar fronte severa. 
Poi con le braccia incateno quel tristo, 
E con la bocca insanguinata e nera 
Gli rese il bacio che avea dato a Cristo.* 

This is one of that class of sonnets which the Italians 
call sonetti col botto, " sonnets with a blow," the last line 
being concentrated and energetic beyond all the rest, and 
closing the sonnet with an explosion of force. It is a 
style less in favor now than of old ; and a better taste 
shows itself in less ambitious and less striking, but more 
simple and pleasing performances. 

Monti wrote four sonnets upon the same theme with 
this of Gianni, but none of them seems to me to possess 
so much merit, and the horror of the subject is to be 
forgotten only in the display of the peculiar power of the 
improvvisatore. 

It is a misfortune that the Italian language should 
lend itself so readily to the making of verses. Papal 
Rome has never had a poet. 

* Translation. — That hour when Judas, filled with madness, 
hung from the tree, his guardian demon came with rapid flight to con- 
front him, flapping his smoking and red wings. And by the rope that 
hung about his neck, down into the boiling of the hellish ditch hardly 
had the demon hurled him with his strong claws, before his flesh 
burned and his bones hissed. And when he reached the fiery whirl- 
wind, horrible Satan himself was seen to smooth his wrinkled brow 
severe. Then with his arms he enchained that wretch, and, with his 
bloody and black mouth, gave back to him the kiss that he had given 
to Christ. 



62 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Rome, 6th February, 1856. 
Home possesses comparatively few works of those cen- 
turies when modern Art exhibited its purest power, and 
reached a spiritual elevation from which it soon fell, 
and which it has never since reattained. The decline 
that became obvious in the sixteenth century stamped 
its marks upon the face of the city. Raphael and Michel 
Angelo were the forerunners of decay, and their works 
and those of the host of their unworthy followers are the 
works which give one of its most prevailing characteris- 
tics to Rome of the present day, and predominate over 
all others. The spirit of the earlier artists was incon- 
gruous with the worldly pomp and selfish display of the 
capital of the Popes ; but Michel Angelo's genius gave 
just expression to the character of the Papacy in its 
period of greatest splendor, and Bernini is the fit repre- 
sentative of its weakness and decline. The eye is 
wearied and discouraged by the constant repetition of 
monuments of Art which, the more skilful and elaborate 
they may be, only the more exhibit the absence of noble 
design and elevated thought. It is vain to seek among 
them for that excellence which is at once the result and 
the source of integrity of purpose and purity of affection. 
The spirit of Christianity is not visible in them. Change 
the attributes with which they are accompanied, (nor 
would even this change be always required,) and the host, 
of sculptured and painted angels, prophets, and martyrs 
of these later centuries might stand for heathen images 
or for figures of the lowest earthly characters. Simplici- 
ty is banished and modesty proscribed. Instead of 



ROME. 63 

being the minister of truth, the purifier of affections, 
the revealer of the beauty of God, Art was degraded to 
the service of ambition and caprice, of luxury and pomp, 
until it became utterly corrupt and false. 

The power of appreciating what was good was neces- 
sarily lost with the desire for it and the love of it ; and 
the results of the last two centuries and a half in Rome 
are hardly more melancholy in what they have produced 
than in what they have destroyed. Works of such men 
as Giotto, Fra Angelico, Perugino, and Razzi have been 
effaced to make room for others worse than worthless; 
and even now the current of improved taste and feeling 
is not so strong as to save from the profanation of so- 
called restorers many most precious relics of the past. 
The example of destruction was set in Raphael's time ; 
and whatever may be the estimate in which his Stanze are 
held, it is not to be forgotten that pictures by Perugino 
and Signorelli were obliterated to make room for them. 

Amid this general wreck, a few of the earlier works 
have escaped ; and after the ambitious effort and empti- 
ness of the degenerate schools, it is a relief and delight 
to find here and there a specimen of the labors of those 
masters who regarded their art as a sacred calling, and 
worked not for the sake of applause or gain, but for the 
love and in the fear of God. The most precious of all 
these is, perhaps, the little chapel of Nicholas V., in the 
Vatican, w r hose w r alls are covered with a series of frescoes 
by Fra Angelico, illustrating the stories of St. Stephen 
and St. Lawrence. This chapel is said to be the oldest 
part of the present Vatican, and its preservation seems 



64 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

to have been owing more to accident than to any recog- 
nition of the beauty which it contained. For more than 
a hundred years the key to it was lost, and its door was 
unopened. Few, except the readers of Vasari, knew 
that such a chapel had existed, and as late as the middle 
of the last century the still smaller number of those who 
desired to see the frescoes were obliged to scramble into 
it through the single window over the high altar. An- 
other chapel at the Vatican was painted by Fra Angel- 
ico, with scenes from the life of Christ ; " an excellent 
work in his manner," says Vasari, and one of whose 
merit we may judge, not only by that of the pictures in 
the chapel of Nicholas V., but also by our knowledge of 
the manner in which this most Christian painter was ac- 
customed to treat the subjects that he drew from the life 
of his Master. But this second chapel was destroyed 
less than a hundred years after it had been painted, by 
one of the Popes, (Paul III.,) who desired to straighten 
a staircase that ran by its side. It is fortunate that no 
crooked stairs passed by that of Nicholas V. 

It was in the year 1446 that Fra Angelico was called 
by the Pope from his convent at Fiesole to paint at 
Rome. He was already an old man, for he was born in 
1387. He had painted in Foligno and in Cortona, but 
his principal works were in Florence, and from there his 
fame had spread over Italy. His life had not been 
marked by great events, and among the biographies of 
artists there are few of less interest from their incidents, 
or of more interest from the character displayed in them, 
than his. Vasari, usually little appreciative of the na* 



ROME. 65 

tare and value of the moral relations and the religious 
bearing of Art, is kindled into enthusiasm in writing of 
this pure and holy man. Contemporary prejudices and 
prepossessions are forgotten, and the biographer partakes 
for the time of the spirit of the artist.* " Such superior 
and extraordinary talent," he says, " as was that of Fra 
Giovanni, cannot and ought not to belong to any but a 
man of most holy life ; for those who employ themselves 
on religious and holy subjects ought to be religious and 
holy men." He was simple in his modes of life, and a 
great friend of the poor. He might have been rich, had 
he cared to be so ; but he used to say that true riches was 
in being content with little. He said that he who em- 
ployed himself in Art had need of quiet and of living free 
from cares, and that he who would represent Christ 
should always live with Christ. " He was never seen 
angry with any of the brothers of the convent; which 
seems to me," says the honest Yasari, "a very great 
thing, and one almost impossible to believe. In fine, 
this never sufficiently to be praised father was most hum- 
ble and modest in all his works and discourse, and in his 
pictures easy and devout ; and the saints that he painted 
have more the air and likeness of saints than those of 
any one else. It was his custom never to retouch or go 
over his painting, but to leave it always as it first came, 

* To such a degree is this the case, that many have supposed that 
this Life could not have been written by Vasari ; but there seems no 
sufficient ground for depriving him of the credit of having composed 
this delightful narrative. See Le Mourner' s edition of Vasari' s Lives. 
Florence, 1848, Vol. IV Commentario alia Vita di Frate Giovanni. 
5 



66 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 






believing, as he said, that such was the will of God. 
Some say that Fra Giovanni would never put his hand 
to his brush before he had made a prayer. He never 
painted a crucifix but tears bathed his cheeks, and thus 
in the looks and attitudes of his figures is seen the good- 
ness of his sincere and great soul in the Christian religion." 

No artist ever more completely painted his own char- 
acter in his works than Fra Angelico. The simplicity, 
the purity, and the spirituality of his life are visible in 
them all. The angels of other artists rarely seem angelic 
when compared with his, and the happy name by which he 
is known is at once expressive of his own virtues and of 
the preeminence of his conceptions of the heavenly host. 
Many faults of drawing, many limitation* of technical 
skill, many of what in strict language are to be called 
artistic defects, are visible in his pictures ; but these de- 
fects were common to all artists of the age ; and it is 
to be remembered that even in artistic qualities he is 
the equal of the best of his time, while the spirit which 
pervades his works is such as to give a charm to their 
very deficiencies, and the stiffness of Fra Angelico is 
not only pardoned, but loved, for the beauty that lies 
behind it. 

The chapel of Nicholas V. is very small, and its ceil- 
ing and walls are wholly covered with his paintings. 
Most of them, though faded, are well preserved ; but 
a few have been ruined by dampness, and others have 
suffered at the hands of restorers. The ceiling is of a 
deep sky-blue color, pointed over with golden stars. In 
the four compartments into which it is divided are the 



ROME. 67 

Four Evangelists. In the corners of the chapel are the 
Eight Doctors of the Church, — two in each corner, one 
above the other.* 

On the walls are represented, in six compartments, the 
principal events of the lives of St. Stephen and St. Law- 
rence, so arranged that the correspondences in their his- 
tories may distinctly appear. These two saints have 
long been associated together in the legends of the 
Church. Their bodies lie in the same tomb, under the 
high altar of the venerable basilica of St. Lawrence with- 
out the Walls, one of the most interesting churches in 
Rome, from its antiquity, the beauty and solitude of its 
position, standing lonely on the edge of the Campagna, 
and from its air of undisturbed quiet and tranquil decay. 
It is said, that, when the relics of St. Stephen were low- 
ered into the tomb, the bones of St. Lawrence moved to 
make room for them. 

The most beautiful of these works of Fra Angelico — 
of which all are beautiful — are, perhaps, the Preaching 
of St. Stephen, and the Distribution of Alms by St. Law- 
rence. In the first the Saint stands upon a step, robed in 
a deacon's dress. Before him sit many women upon the 
ground, listening to his words. Behind these women 
stand "certain of the synagogue," laying plots against 
him. The background is occupied with the buildings of 
Jerusalem. The simplicity of the arrangement of the 
group of women is entire ; their attitudes are full of na- 

* They are St. John Chrysostom and St. Bonaventura (or St. Je- 
rome), St. Gregory and St. Augustine, St. Athanasius and St. Thomaa 
Aquinas, St. Ambrose and St. Leo. 



68 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

ture, of dignity, and of grace ; their expressions are of 
earnest attention ; and their sweet, thoughtful, ancj serious 
faces, " looking steadfastly on him, see his face as though 
it were the face of an angel." The painter was too deeply 
impressed with the reality of what he desired to represent, 
to strive after those varieties of composition which, w T hile 
showing his skill, would have interfered with the needed 
expression. The only collateral incident that he intro- 
duces is the represention of a little child seated by his 
mother, who holds his hand. There is nothing to remind 
one of the painter ; St. Stephen and his audience are 
all that the picture brings before the mind. 

In the Distribution of Alms by St. Lawrence, the sub- 
ject is not less simply and nobly treated. The Saint 
stands in the centre of the picture, surrounded by the 
poor, blind, and lame. His face has a deep serenity of 
expression, as if his heart were filled with the foreknowl- 
edge of that horrible but triumphant death which awaited 
him on the next day. His dress is of the richest color, 
and ornamented with symbolic flames of gold. Two little 
children, with their arms about each other, are at his side, 
just turning away with the gift they have received from 
him. A blind man is feeling forward w T ith his staff. A 
poor cripple is stretching up his hand for the alms which 
the Saint holds out. A woman approaches with her baby 
in her arms. Two old people draw near on the other 
side. All the figures are instinct with truth and life. It 
is like a real scene, and the benign spirit of charity gives 
it a celestial glory.* 

* Small outlines from these two pictures are to be found in the last 



ROME. G9 

In the pictures of the martyrdoms of the two Saints, it 
is curious to observe how the mild pencil of Fra Angelico 
has refused to represent the vileness of the execution- 
ers. He could not paint wickedness, and the bad them- 
selves are saved from the hatred that is due to them 
by that sublime weakness which was unable to im- 
agine evil. This chapel is one of the holy places of 
Rome. 

Fra Angelico never returned to his well-beloved con- 
vents in Florence and in Fiesole. He painted other 
works in Rome, and for some months labored in that 
great storehouse of the best Art, the duomo of Orvieto. 
He died at Rome on the 18th of March, 1455. He was 
buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and 
the Pope, Nicholas V., who had held him in just esteem, 
caused a monumental slab, upon which his effigy w T as 
sculptured, to be erected to his memory. 

This monument still remains in the chapel at the left 
of the choir of this splendid church. The artist is repre- 
sented in the dress of his order, his head resting upon 
a pillow and his hands folded. The face seems to have 
been taken from a mask made after death. The closed 
eyes are deep-set, and the cheeks hollow, as if sunk with 
age and disease. The features are small and delicate, 
and marked with an air of grave repose. The lower 
part of the monument is worn by the passing by of the 

edition of the English translation of Kugler's Handbook of Paint- 
ing ; and the Arundel Society has done a good work in publishing 
a complete series of outlines, on a large scale, of the frescoes in this 
chanel 



70 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

generations that have stood and knelt at its side. The 
inscription under the figure is as follows : — 

HIC JACET YEN. PICTOR FR. IO. BE FLO. ORDINIS PREDICAT. 

14LY. 

NON MIHI SIT LAUDI QUOD EEAM VELUT ALTER APELLES 
SEE- QUOD LUCRA TUIS OMNIA CHRISTE DABAM I 
ALTERA NAM TERRIS OPERA EXTANT ALTERA COELO. 
URBS ME JOANNEM FLOS TULIT ETRURLSJ. 

Here lies the venerable painter, Brother John of Florence, of the 
Order of the Preachers. 1455. 

Not mine be the praise that I was as a second Apelles, 
But that I gave all my gains to thine, Christ I 
One work is for the earth, another for heaven. 
The city the Flower of Tuscany bore me — John. 

Rome, February, 1856. 
It is a custom in Rome, when a house is completed, 
that all those who have been engaged in building ""'"' 
should have a little celebration together. I met last 
night an architect well known here, a man of education 
and intelligence. Not long ago, he was at a meeting of 
this sort, to celebrate the completion of a building, the 
erection of which he had overseen. In the midst of the 
proceedings, the police suddenly broke in, and arrested 
the architect with several others of the company. He 
was thrown into prison, — and this is in itself a severe 
punishment in Rome, owing to the ill condition and bad 
management of the prisons ; he was not informed of the 
nature of the charge against him ; for three months he 
was in confinement ; he was then brought before one of 



ROME. 71 

the courts, and learned that he was charged with having 
taken part in a seditious meeting. He was able to prove 
that the meeting was simply of the kind described, and 
that he and the workmen with whom he had been asso- 
ciated were infringing on no political reserves ; and he 
was ordered to be discharged, but to remain for some 
months under the surveillance of the police. He received 
no apology or compensation, and he had no means of re- 
dress. The authorities took no account of the interrup- 
tion of his social relations, or of the injury to his business. 
It would be dangerous for him, were he to complain, and 
no good could come of it ; even the story must be told 
under one's breath. I heard it last night in a drawing- 
room, where was delighting the company with 

the music of his wonderful violin. Under a despotism, 
the musician has a happy lot. No spy can detect the 
sedition that may lie within the compass of his instru- 
ct jnt; and he may breathe out the longings of his soul 
for freedom in notes the secret meaning of which no 
police agent can detect. The Italian loves that music 
which expresses those passions the expression of which 
he may indulge in no other way. It is for this reason 
that Yerdi is now the favorite master over all Italy ; and 
it is not only because the librettos of some of his operas 
were too liberal, but because the music itself was instinct 
with the wild and vague liberalism of the time, that 
their performance has now and then been forbidden by 
suspicious authorities. But when the singers could no 
longer sing them, the organists began to play them in the 
churches. 



72 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Rome, February 22d, 1856. 

The condition of public affairs here is thoroughly dis- 
heartening. No state could be more rotten and retain 
its vitality. " Our government," — a Roman, who is 
neither revolutionist nor radical, said to me, — " our gov- 
ernment is in the hands of three classes : bigots, knaves, 
and fools." The principle of action of the larger num- 
ber of these men is expressed in the concise words of 
Louis XV. : " Ceci durera plus que moi " ; they are men 
without religion, without probity, without patriotism, but 
with power. 

This year some of the annual taxes were laid for four- 
teen instead of twelve months. A piece of absurd chi- 
canery. The government did not wish nominally to 
increase the tax, and therefore ordered that the year 
should be considered as containing fourteen months, and 
the tax be reckoned by months, and paid accordingly. 

No employe of government pays taxes. 

Corruption rules supreme. It is acknowledged and 
permitted by the highest authorities. Many officials re- 
ceive a salary so small as to be utterly insufficient for 
their support ; they are told to depend for their livelihood 
on the incerti of their office, — that is, on fees, whose very 
name shows that they are regulated by no fixed scale, 
but depend on the ingenuity and the impudence of him 
who demands them. 

Both justice and injustice are for sale ; and the first 
price asked for either is often much larger than will be 
finally accepted ; as is the case with that asked for most 
articles in Rome. 



ROME. 73 

One of the most amusing instances of petty and cor- 
rupt tyranny is that exercised by the servants of men in 
authority. These servants, coming from the very dregs 
of the people, with all the pretensions of full-blooded 
flunkies, and with all the dirt of a friar, keep a list of the 
persons who visit or have business with their masters ; 
and twice a year, at midsummer and at the beginning of 
the year, call at the houses of these their masters' ac- 
quaintance, and demand a mancia, a " gift," or a " fee," 
for their services. If it is refused, they have a thousand 
ways of exacting their vengeance. Their master is not 
in when he who does not give the mancia calls ; notes 
to him are mislaid : and all the petty vexations that the 
malice of servants can suggest are well worked out. To 
one whose social relations are extensive, the mancia is a 
serious tax. From three to five pauls (thirty to fifty 
cents) is a common sum to be given. It is plain how 
soon this would score up to a considerable amount. 

The saddest aspect of things here arises, however, not 
from the weak tyranny of the government, nor from the 
corruption of officials, but from the character and con- 
dition of the people themselves. Society is divided into 
two great classes, — that of those whose interest it is to 
keep things as they are, and that of those who would 
change or overthrow the existing conditions, in the belief 
that change must be improvement. The first of these 
classes is a small minority, but united by discipline, by 
education, and by faith, and holding power, money, and 
troops in their hands. The other is made up of nine- 
tenths of the Romans, but without organization, without 



74 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

confidence in each other, without intimate knowledge 
of each other, and with principles so adverse on many 
points as to desire completely different courses of action. 
Distrust is the one prevailing element in society. No 
one confides in the one who stands next to him. Hypoc- 
risy is the rule, not only of Jesuits, but of those who 
have been governed by Jesuits. 

Meanwhile, moderate and thoughtful men live and suf- 
fer. Their daily lives are a daily struggle. To die 
would be a happiness, if by their deaths any good could 
be accomplished for Rome ; but to offer themselves as 
sacrifices, in a cause where the devotion of a single life 
would seem like attempting to force a flood back with the 
hands, would be the exhibition not of heroism, but of 
impatience and of faithlessness. " But it is better not to 
talk of these things," said an Italian to me ; " for these 
are the things that leave a bitterness in the heart." All 
is darkness, and the wisest men are groping for light, not 
knowing in what direction it lies. But perhaps the first 
glimmer of a new dawn may even at this black moment 
be springing fast forward, soon to break the blankness of 
the sky. God deserts not the world. Trial, sorrow, and 
suffering are the forerunners of justice, liberty, and truth. 

" I watch the circle of the eternal years, 
And read for ever in the storied page 
One lengthened roll of blood and wrong and tears, 
One onward step of Truth from age to age. 

" The poor are crushed; the tyrants link their chain; 
The poet sings through narrow dungeon-grates ; 
Man's hope lies quenched; and lo! with steadfast gain 
Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse fates." 



ROME. 75 

Rome, 2Stli January. 1856. 

The Sala Regia at the Vatican serves as a vestibule 
for the Sistine and Pauline chapels. Few persons stop 
long to examine the frescoes with which its walls are 
covered ; for Michel Angelo's great picture is too near, 
and Raphael's loggie are to be reached through the 
adjoining hall. The frescoes, indeed, are 'the work of 
second-rate artists, and do not, for the most part, deserve 
attention, except as affording some curious illustrations 
of the facts of history, as understood at the Papal court 
at the time when they were executed. In this respect, 
three of them are remarkable enough, and the story of 
their painting is entertaining ; — ■ they are the three by 
Vasari, representing scenes from the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew. 

In the beginning of 1572, Yasari, who was now sixty 
years old, was at work painting in this hall under the 
direction of Pope Pius V., with whom he was a great 
favorite. Other artists had been previously employed ; 
but now Yasari was to do all that remained, and to go 
on until the work was completed. Suddenly, on the first 
of May, the old Pope died. Poor Yasari was bitterly 
vexed. " This is an infinite loss to me," he writes, the 
day after the Pope's death ; " for I was just settling 
affairs for Marcantotrio," (his nephew, for whom he had 
been endeavoring to secure some favor,) "and getting 
something for myself. .... I was just finishing painting 
in fresco the Battle of the Turks, and it is the best thing 
that I ever did, and the greatest and the most studied ; 
but his Holiness has carried away with him all the hopes 



76 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

of my labors, yet the fame of Giorgio will remain for 
ages of years ; thus it is that the wind carries away van- 
ity and our labors."* The honesty of Giorgio's letter is 
delightful, and his attempt at resignation has an amusing 
naivete. His plans were for the time broken up, and it 
was doubtful whether the next Pope would stand his 
friend and continue him in the work that he had begun. 
He had to cover up his nearly finished Battle of Lepanto, 
and, leaving Rome, returned to Florence, where he was 
sure of employment under his patron, the Grand Duke 
Cosmo I. Here he remained through the summer, but, 
early in October, a letter came from Rome, summoning 
him thither, at the command of the new Pope, Gregory 
XIII., to finish the work he had begun in the Sala de' 
Re. He did not delay going, and on the 17th of Novem- 
ber he writes from Rome to Prince Francis, afterwards 
Grand Duke of Tuscany, telling him of his arrival, and 
of his satisfactory interview with the Pope. " His Holi- 
ness intends to finish the hall entirely, and has a mind," 
says Vasari, " to have on the side not yet painted the 
affair of the Huguenots which has taken place this year 
under his pontificate." On the 20th, the Prince writes 
his answer to this letter. It was a short one, but there 
was room in it for the following sentence : " His Holiness 
does wisely in wishing that so holy *and noble a success 
as was the execution against the Huguenots in France 
should appear in the Sala de' Re." The massacre of St. 

* This extract and the succeeding one are taken from letters pub- 
lished by Dr. Gaye in his Carteggio cPArlisti, a book full of curious 
and often important information. 



ROME. 77 

Bartholomew had taken place but three months before 
this time. The Pope's design of having this " eternal 
infamy of France " painted upon the walls of the great 
hall of his palace, and the Prince's approval of the plan 
as one worthy of the head of the Church of Christ, would 
be like an extravagant travesty of reality, were they not 
so in con t rover tibly true. 

On the 12th of December is another letter of Vasari's 
to Prince Francis, in which he describes at some length 
his designs for the three pictures that were to be painted 
concerning the Huguenots. The first was to represent 
the death of Admiral Coligny, or rather his being borne 
wounded to his palace ; the next was to be the break- 
ing of his door by the Guises and their band, and the 
throwing of the Admiral from the window, with the 
slaughter of the Huguenots in the streets ; and the third 
was to represent the King going to the church to return 
thanks to God, and sitting in parliament with his council. 
" These works, I am afraid, will keep me occupied a long 
while." On the 18th of February, 1573, Vasari writes 
to his friend Yincenzio Borghini, and in the course of 
his letter says : " I keep my hands going like a fifer, and, 
God be praised, every one of the six great cartoons for 
the six pictures in the hall is entirely finished ; nor have 
I ever done better, God helping me. And in the hall are 
finished within eight days two pictures wholly colored in 
fresco by my hand, which means something ; and if 
things go on so that next Tuesday Messer Lorenzo of 
Bologna, with two others, come to help me, I believe that 
by the end of April everything may be finished, and 



78 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

everybody dismissed. But I do not believe that I shall 
be able to get away from here before the end of May, 
because I shall have to manage to get something for 
Marcantonio, my nephew ; and this court is very slow, 
and, although I am a favorite and well looked upon, etc., 
this thing of making haste has the Devil on his back. 
But I am skilful, and God will aid me, and I shall have 
finished one of the greatest works that I ever did ; for if 
Malagigi had had this hall to do, it would have fright- 
ened him, both him and his devils ; but because here, 
Monsignor Mio, is God, and He does these things, and not 
I, you may be sure it is so." * 

Other letters, giving an account of the progress of 
the work, follow from time to time, equally amusing from 
their unreserve, the pleasant mixture of piety and self- 
complacency, and the clear picture which they afford, not 
only of Vasari's character, but also of the condition of 
things at this period in Rome. At last, on the 1st of 
May, the pictures were finished, and he writes to tell Bor- 
ghini of a visit which the Pope had paid to him in the hall 
the day before : " The Pope and the few gentlemen who 
were with him were full of wonder, and his Holiness 
stayed there more than a whole hour, and said many 
kind words to me, and told me that I had never done 
better, and promised that he would give something to my 
nephew, Marcantonio, and that he would remember me ; 

* Vasari's sentences in these letters are frequently unfinished, and 
with a syntax that is somewhat confused; obviously written offhand 
and carelessly. The spelling, too, is often very bad; but his meaning 
As generally clear. 



ROME. 79 

and this evening the court is full of admiration, the re- 
port having got about that I have finished." All through 
the month his content continues. " This is the best work 
of all that I have done in Rome." " God has granted to 
me the favor that the hall is finished, and yesterday 
morning [the 20th] it was opened with great praise and 
honor to me." In June, Vasari left the city, which, ac- 
cording to his own expression, had been so good to him, 
and returned to Florence. The pictures of the Massacre 
of St. Bartholomew were the last works that he accom- 
plished in Rome. In June of the next year, he died. 

These frescoes, spite of Vasari's own judgment of 
them, are hardly to be reckoned as his best works. 
They are cold in color and weak in design. " We paint," 
says he, " six pictures in a year, while the earlier mas- 
ters took six years to paint one .picture." And it would 
not be difficult to paint six pictures of this sort in so 
short a space of time. There is nothing, however, 
in their execution, any more than in his letters about 
them, to show that he regarded the subject of the massa- 
cre with dislike. It was a triumph of the Church, and 
it mattered little whether the Church triumphed over infi- 
dels or over heretics. The time of faith had passed, 
and had been succeeded by that of indifference to every- 
thing but the interests of the visible Church. These 
pictures stand not so much a monument to Vasari's 
fame, as a record of the approval bestowed upon one 
of the blackest deeds of intolerant and cruel passion 
by him who professed to be the Vicar of Christ up 
on earth. 



80 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Inscriptions were placed under these three pictures. 
The first read, — 

Gaspard Colignius Amirallius Accepto Vttlnere Domum 
Eeeeptur Greg. XIII. Pontif. Max. 1572. 

The second was, — 

C^edes Colignii et Sociorum ejus. 
And the third, — 

Bex Colignii Necem Probat. 

In 1828 these inscriptions still existed,* but now they 
are obliterated, and the space which they once filled is 
unoccupied. One might suggest that these blanks should 
be filled once more : that under the first picture one 
should read, Love your enemies ; under the second, 
Bless them that persecute you ; and under the third, 
Forgive us our trespasses. 

The news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew arriv- 
ed at Rome on the 5th of September, 1572. The let- 
ters announcing the event, which the legate of the Pope, 
Salviati, had sent from Paris, were read the next morning 
in the presence of the Pope, at an assembly of the Car- 

* See Stendhal, Promenades dans Borne, I. 224. " Thus," says 
this clever writer, " there is one place in Europe where assassination 
is publicly honored." The upright President de Thou was accus- 
tomed to quote the following lines from Statius, applying them to the 
massacre. Their lesson seems to have been but half learned at 
Borne. 

" Excidat ilia dies sevo, ne postera credant 
Ssecula : nos certe taceamus, et obruta multa 
Nocte tegi proprise patiamur crimina gentis." 



ROME. 81 

dinals. Their contents were to the effect, that the Admi- 
ral and the Huguenots having' entered into a conspiracy 
against the King, they had been slain by the royal will 
and permission. After the news had been heard, it was 
determined that there should be a solemn service in ^ 
commemoration of the event, on the next Monday, in 
the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. From the 
meeting, the Pope and Cardinals proceeded at once 
to the church of St. Mark to render thanks to God the 
infinitely great and good, {Deo optimo maximo,) for 
the great favor He had vouchsafed to bestow on the 
Roman Church and the whole Christian world. The 
exultant joy at Rome was wonderful. A salvo was fired 
from the castle of Sant' Angelo, and in the evening fire- 
works were displayed and bonfires lighted in the streets. 
None of those rejoicings were omitted which the Roman 
Church observes on occasion of the most glorious vic- 
tories. 

The news of the massacre was received with especial 
satisfaction by the Cardinal de Lorraine, brother to that 
Duke de Guise who had been slain by a young Hugue- 
not at the siege of Orleans in 1562. He hated the 
Huguenots with a personal and vindictive hatred. He 
gave publicly a thousand crowns to the courier who 
brought intelligence so welcome to him, and, on his de- 
mand, the Pope and the Cardinals went in procession, 
two days afterward, with the most splendid and stately 
pomp, to the church of San Luigi de' Francesi, to assist 
at a solemn festival in celebration of this triumph over 
the enemies of the Faith. The Cardinal placed an in- 



82 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

scription above the door of the church, in which, in the 
name of his master, Charles IX., he congratulated the 
Pontiff, the Cardinals, the Senate, and the people of 
Rome, on the stupendous results of the prayers and the 
counsels of many years.* The church was crowded by 
the chief people of the city, and the Protestants were 
publicly cursed. A jubilee was proclaimed by the Pope, 
that thanks might be rendered to God for the destruction 
of the enemies of the truth, and of the Church in France, 
and by his direction a medal was struck, on one side of 
which were his own head and the date of his pontificate, 
and on the other a representation of an angel with a 
sword in his hand pursuing armed men, who are in flight, 
and some of whom have already fallen, with the inscrip- 
tion, Strages Ugonottorum, " The Slaughter of the Hu- 
guenots." f 

Such was the spirit of the times, and such the con- 
dition of religion at Pome. All the facts above stated 
are taken from Roman Catholic authorities. It would be 
well to let them rest ; but in a series of tracts recently 
written by some of the English converts to Romanism, 

* See Thuanus, Hist. LIV. § 4. De Thou was an eyewitness of 
the massacre at Paris, and the next year was at Rome. 

f M. Artaud de Montor, well known as a zealous Romanist, gives a 
full account of this medal, the existence of which has been some- 
times disputed, in his life of Gregory XIII., — Ilistoire des Souverains 
Pontifes Romains, IV. 410-415. It was contained in a collection of 
the Papal medals given to him by Pius VII. But it appears that 
some years afterwards he himself persuaded Leo XII. to order this 
medal, " cette terrible medaille^ to be withdrawn from a similar col* 
lection which this Pope was about to send away as a gift. 



ROME. 83 

and much in favor here at present, there is an able and 
curious defence of the proceedings of the Court of Rome 
in this affair. The writer assumes that at the time of 
these rejoicings nothing was known of the indiscriminate 
nature of the massacre. " The Court of Rome rejoiced 
and returned God thanks, not for a massacre, but for the 
detection and suppression of a bloody conspiracy ; a legit- 
imate and righteous cause of pious congratulation in the 
eyes of every reasonable man." * And again : " In 
short, the undoubted facts of history — and, I may acid, 
every new fact which is established — entirely acquit the 
Pope and the Church of France of all sort of connection 
with the massacre, whoever may have been its guilty con- 
trivers. The accusation has not only no grounds, but no 
shadow of a ground to rest upon ; and is the pure inven- 
tion of a stupid and malignant bigotry, regardless alike 
of rational probability and of historical truth." f This 
statement may be literally correct ; one may admit that 
neither the Pope nor the Church of France had any con- 
nection with this massacre as its contrivers or instigators, 
but this is all. To rejoice in and honor the performance 
of a deed after its commission is generally the token of a 
spirit that would not have prevented its possessor from 
taking share in the deed, had his circumstances allowed. 
The Cardinal de Lorraine, whose vindictive exultation 
over the massacre was exhibited in the most notorious 
manner, was one of the highest dignitaries of that Church 
which is said to have had no connection of any sort with 

* Clifton Tracts, Vol. I. Tract V., p. 29. t Id., p. 32. 



84 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the deed. The Pope marked his satisfaction in the most 
durable of methods, and reckoned the event the chief 
glory of the first year of his reign. It will not do to say 
that he was ignorant of the horrid nature and the worse 
than barbarous cruelties of the massacre, when he re- 
garded it in this manner ; for it was three months after 
it had taken place, a space too long for ignorance, that 
he gave Vasari the order to paint those monumental pic- 
tures which still bear witness to the truth on the walls 
of the Sala de' He. 

It will be a happy day for truth, when Catholics and 
Protestants alike become ready to acknowledge that men 
of both names have, in all ages, done deeds for which 
there can be no defence. To labor to obscure the truth 
concerning guilt, and to seek for false or fallacious ex- 
cuses of a crime, is to become a sharer in the crime 
itself. 

Rome, February 28th, 1856. 

Gas-works have recently been established in Rome, 
under the charge of an English contractor. The tall 
modern chimney of the works rises near to the Tiber, 
under the Palatine Hill, and is somewhat incongruous, 
both in appearance and association, with the character 
of the surrounding objects. 

The contractor is a monopolist, and carries things with 
rather a high hand. One of his late proceedings exhibits 
the manner in which justice reaches its end in Rome. 
He was desirous of introducing gas into the house in 
which he himself occupied hired apartments. The pro- 



ROME. 85 

prietor, however, was averse to the proposal ; whereupon 
the pipes were carried in by the Englishman, spite of all 
opposition. The proprietor brought the case before one 
of the courts, and a surveyor was appointed to examine 
the premises and adjudicate upon the matter. He re- 
ported, that the rights of the owner of the house had been 
clearly violated, and that the English contractor ought to 
be compelled to restore things to their former condition. 
From this decision the contractor appealed to another 
court. The decision was, however, confirmed, and an 
architect appointed to oversee what was necessary to re- 
store the house. The architect was beginning to carry 
out the order of the court, when a notice was served 
upon him by the police to proceed no farther in the busi- 
ness. The explanation of this is simple. The English- 
man is rich ; the police can be bribed. Omnia Bomce 
cum pretio. 

Rome, 12th March, 1856. 
The prevalence of beggary has been for centuries one 
of the discredits of Rome. It has existed in spite of the 
efforts and the bulls of successive Popes, and in spite also 
of the abundant almsgiving of Catholic charity, — or rath- 
er, not in spite of, so much as in consequence of, this indis- 
criminate almsgiving. Perhaps no city in Europe is fur- 
nished with more numerous or more wealthy institutions 
for the care of the poor, and yet few cities have a larger 
or more unblushing host of beggars. The beggary of 
Rome is a reproach not so much to the charity as to the 
good sense of the Romans. Poverty has been increased 



86 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

by the means taken to relieve it, and mistakes of judg- 
ment and of doctrine have produced evil consequences, 
for which no excellence of intention can serve as ex- 
cuse. But in the midst of much false benevolence there 
has been much of that true charity which does not con- 
fine itself to the relief, but considers also how best to 
secure the prevention of pressing want. Some of the 
public charities in Rome are institutions of the most effi- 
cient character ; and many private individuals now devote 
themselves, and have in generations past devoted them- 
selves, with self-forgetful energy, and an intelligence un- 
blinded by the fallacies of the Church, to the improve- 
ment of the condition of the poor. 

I had the good-fortune, the other day, to find a little 
book, printed in 1625, which contains the life of a man 
who, in his time, did much good ; whose name, hardly 
known at all out of Rome, and but little known even 
there, deserves remembrance, as that of one who very 
early saw and attempted to deal with the evil which is 
pressing so heavily upon us, and to remedy which so 
many attempts are being made in our cities, — that of 
the destitution and misery of young children. His name 
was Giovanni Leonardo Ceruso. He was born near 
Salerno, not far from Naples, in the year 1551. His 
parents were neither rich nor poor ; they lived happily, 
and brought up their children in the fear of God, and as 
good Christians. The elder brother of Giovanni became 
the priest of the village where they lived, and put Gio- 
vanni at the head of the parish school. Here he taught 
the children with fidelity, and, as he almost always spoke 



ROME. 87 

in Latin to them, and used often to write upon the 
ground with a stick which he held in his hand while he 
was in school, the older* scholars gave him the nickname 
of Letterato, by which name he was afterwards generally 
known. During all his early life he appears to have 
shown a devout and modest disposition, " and he was," 
says this account, "so possessed with the virtue of charity, 
that he exercised it towards all, and especially to the weak- 
est and most abject persons. He often visited the sick, 
when there were any in the place, comforting them, and 
aiding them with his means as much as he could." One 
morning it happened that he, together with the other 
members of his family, ate some poisonous funguses by 
mistake for mushrooms. They were all taken violently 
ill, and Letterato, being at the point of death, recom- 
mended himself to the Most Holy Madonna of Loreto, 
and made a vow that he would make a pilgrimage to her 
Holy House, if she would restore him to health. He soon 
got well, and in a short time left his little village to go to 
Naples, in order to take service in the house of Signor 
Mario Carrafa, that he might earn money enough to pay 
the expenses of going to and returning from Loreto, in 
fulfilment of his vow. He had not been long in his new 
post before Signor Carrafa died, and Letterato, with the 
money he had already earned, set out for Rome. '" Here 
he visited the Temple . of St. Peter and the Seven 
Churches, and at St. John, Letterato ascended the Holy 
Stairs with great devotion ; and discovering, during his 
stay in Eome, that he had not money enough to prosecute 
his journey, he set about finding a master and placing 



88 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

himself in the best way he could, and so was accepted as 
groom in the household of the Cardinal de' Medici, who 
was afterwards Grand Duke Ferdinand." In this new 
service he acquitted himself with such acceptance as to 
excite the jealousy of one of his fellow-servants, who 
sought a quarrel with him, in which they both drew their 
swords, and blood was near being shed. This event led 
Letterato to reflect that his vow was as yet unfulfilled, 
and, obtaining a dismissal from service, he set out for Lo- 
reto on foot. The journey seems to have been spent in 
sincere religious exercises, and was not without its effects 
upon his future life. It was in the winter of 1582, " a 
most bitter and snowy winter," that he performed his vow, 
and returned to Home. On coming back to the city, he 
saw much poverty, " and especially some poor children 
deserted and half dead with cold and hunger." This 
sight touched his heart, and he took, " almost as if by 
accident," three of these children, who were very fam- 
ished and weak, and, carrying two of them in his arms, 
led the other along by the hand, walking very slowly, 
and by turns, as one grew tired, he took him up, setting 
down one of the others to walk. So he went through the 
city, till at length a charitable person gave him a cham- 
ber in which to shelter the children, and others furnished 
him with food and clothing for them. But every day the 
number of children who needed care and help increased, 
and Letterato continued his work. Larger rooms had to 
be procured, and in supplying these with common coarse 
bedding and other necessary articles of furniture, and 
in getting clothes for the shivering boys, he spent all the 



ROME. 89 

little money that he possessed. But the charity of others, 
moved by his zeal and devotion, supplied him with fresh 
means, and, as the number of his boys grew larger, his 
ability to receive them was increased. " And now he be- 
gan to teach these little children the Lord's Prayer, the 
Ave Maria, the Credo, and the Salve Regina, and to sing 
these and other prayers both morning and evening." And 
in order that they might not be doing nothing all day, he 
took them with him, making them walk two by two 
through the city, singing their prayers and hymns. 
About this time he laid aside the habit of a layman, and 
adopted a dark blue coarse dress, and went barefooted, 
and without any covering on his head, so that, on account 
of his humble apparel and his troop of boys, Padre Ca- 
millo was accustomed to call him " the dumb preacher," 
as one who made himself understood without speaking. 
And in order not to seek alms without having deserved 
them, and in order also still more to humble his pride, (a 
sin which he distrusted himself for possessing,) he began 
with his largest boys to sweep the streets, especially 
where were the most shops and offices ; and when the 
work was finished, and the dirt had been carried away 
and thrown into the river, he would go and beg an alms 
from the shopkeepers and others, who willingly gave it 
to him. 

He wished that his boys should behave with mod- 
esty not only in the streets, but also when they were to- 
gether in the house. " As soon as they were out of bed 
in the morning, he made them all kneel down and thank 
God who had kept them that night, and before dinner 



90 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

and supper also he made them thank Him." The older 
boys he used to take with him to the churches, and to 
talk with them about spiritual things, and of the love of 
God. And now so much was given to him by those who 
saw what good he was effecting, that he was able to get 
new clothes for all his children, and he dressed them in 
blue stuff, like himself; and when they went to walk in 
procession, one of them carried before the rest a cross of 
wood, upon which was cut in large letters the word Char- 
ity, so that many people gave them alms. 

The number of children under his care greatly in- 
creased ; and not only little boys, but many great boys 
also, in order not to live like vagabonds about Rome, were 
glad to be received by Letterato ; and as his means for 
taking care of them had also increased, he secured a 
piece of ground near the Porta del Popolo, and there 
erected a building accommodated to the wants of his 
charge. He had many little beds of brick made in it, 
one for each of his boys, and supplied them with straw 
mattresses and sufficient coverlets. There were tables, 
also, at which they ate in common ; and he had made in 
the house, beside, a chapel, in which there was an altar 
and a large crucifix of wood, before which he and his 
boys were accustomed to say their prayers. " And I 
remember,'' says the writer of his life, " that, when he 
showed me this crucifix, pointing toward it with his hand, 
he said, ' In eo l&tabitur cor nostrum ' ; and he said this 
with so much feeling as plainly showed that he had ear- 
nest of eternal happiness." 

On one occasion, having been asked how, in the midst 



ROME. 91 

of the temptations with which Rome abounded, he could 
keep his soul pure and his thoughts fixed on prayer, he 
replied, " that when a vase was full it could hold nothing 
more, and that he tried to keep his heart filled with the 
thoughts of God, and that his aid was the grace of the 
Lord, who, whenever on our part we do all that we can, 
never deserts us." " In the care of his poor children," 
says his friend who describes his life, " he was most de- 
voted, performing the part of father, of mother, and of 
nurse, entering at once through his compassion into all 
their affections, and serving them in everything, not as 
poor castaways, abandoned by their parents and by the 
world, but as if they were angels, and he were serving 
the Lord himself, who saith, ' What ye have done for 
one of the least of these, ye have done for me.' 

" He exercised charity also toward many poor stran- 
gers, providing them with lodging for at least one night, 
and giving them what aid he could, that they might re- 
turn to their homes ; and he showed the same care to- 
ward the poor whom he found in the city, succoring and 
aiding them in their greatest needs, and especially if 
they were old, or feeble, or ill-used, or burdened with in- 
curable diseases, as many are who may be seen every 
day in the city ; and he extended his charity to poor 
prisoners also, in their great necessities." 

But his chief labor was always for his children, whom 
he taught as well as he was able. He qualified the 
older boys to teach the younger, especially wishing that 
they should learn their prayers one from another ; but 
he did not permit the elder to punish the others. This 



92 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

he did in order that they should love each other more, 
and should live in peace and love. 

In this course of life, with constantly increasing use- 
fulness, Letterato continued for many years. The chil- 
dren whom he had first taken charge of were succeeded 
by others, year after year, and all were served by him 
with a thoroughness and fidelity that never failed. At 
last, in the autumn of 1594, when he was forty-three years 
old, he was taken ill with a fever. Anxious to return to 
his children, he did not give sufficient time to the restora- 
tion of his health, and having worn himself out with his 
renewed exertions, early in 1595 he was again attacked 
by illness. He was taken to the house of Cardinal 
Federico Borromeo, who had long been one of his 
friends, and here his last days were surrounded by all the 
comforts and attention that kindness could render. On 
the day before his death he sent for his children to come 
and see him. When they had gathered about his bed, he 
said that he wished they would sing something to him ; 
and when the little boy whom he loved best of all asked 
him what he would like to hear, he answered, that he 
should like to have them sing 

" Dico spesso al mio cuore, 
Solo servendo Dio 1' alma non muore." 

" Often I say to my heart, Only serving God, the 
soul does not die." 

And when they had sung this, and other spiritual 
songs, he joined with them in singing, u I have prepared 
to follow thee, Jesus, my hope, through the rough, hard 



ROME. 93 

way, with my cross." When they had finished singing, 
he said to them, " May God bless you all, my dearest 
children ! Be good and fear the Lord." Then they took 
leave of him, and went away crying. The next day, the 
15th of February, 1595, with words of Christian hope 
upon his lips, he died. 

The writer of his life says, at the close of his narra- 
tive, " This is all I have been able to write now of the 
life and death of Letterato ; and from this my little work 
the pious soul may learn at least something of love, if 
nothing else." 

The usefulness of Letterato did not end with his 
death. The work begun by him was continued by others, 
and at the present time an institution for poor children 
exists in Rome, whose origin may be traced back to the 
impulse given by his example. 

Rome, May 29th, 1856. 
Evening schools, similar to those that have been estab- 
lished of late in so many American cities, for the instruct 
tion of boys who are at work during the day, were com- 
menced as long ago as 1830 in Rome. They owe their 
origin to Michele Gigli, an advocate, who devoted his life 
to good works, and died of cholera in 1837, a victim to 
exhausting efforts for the poor and sick. The idea of 
evening schools for the purpose of affording instruction 
to those who can gain it at no other time seems to have 
been original with him. There are now thirteen of these 
schools in different sections of the city, and they are at- 
tended by no less than a thousand pupils. Their support 



94 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

depends wholly upon private energy and private means. 
The government, although it recognizes and controls their 
existence, does nothing in aid of them. At the head 
of each school is an ecclesiastic ; the teaching is given 
voluntarily and gratuitously, for the most part, by young 
men of liberal education, who are willing to devote their 
evenings to the work. A great difficulty is to find 
teachers enough ; for the schools are open for an hour 
and a half every evening but Sunday, and there are 
comparatively few persons who possess sufficient energy 
and sufficient leisure to attend regularly. One might 
expect, that, among the priests and friars who overrun 
Rome, leading inactive lives, enough might be found glad 
to undertake this duty of teaching. But such is not the 
case; — many are indifferent to the. work, many are too 
ignorant to perform it. A few there are willing and 
able, and among these is the Abate Fabiani, to whose 
good judgment, intelligent liberality, and energy, much of 
the present success and popularity of these schools is 
due. 

The boys who attend the evening schools are of all 
ages, from five or six to eighteen or twenty, — from those 
who are just beginning to learn to read, to those who 
have made some progress in geometry and in drawing. 
They advance regularly from the lowest class to the 
highest, each school being divided into four or more 
classes. The quickness and intelligence of these boys are 
very striking to one who has been accustomed to the 
dulness of intellect that is so often found among the 
poor children who attend similar schools in our country, 



ROME. 95 

while the pleasant looks and good manners of the Roman 
children speak well for their tempers and the common 
influences by which they are surrounded. Each class in 
the school is divided into two parties, one called that of 
the Carthaginians, the other that of the Romans, — and 
the object of each of these parties is to secure the larg*est 
number of the little prizes of pencils, or pens, or boxes 
of instruments, that are given by the instructor at the 
end of each term. The first boy of each of the parties 
is called the Imperator, the next two are Generals, and 
the fourth the Standard-Bearer, — distinctions that are 
held by the boys as long as they can keep the first places. 
Many of the scholars being apprenticed at trades which 
require a considerable degree of mechanical skill, such as 
cabinet-making, iron and brass work and jewelry, it has 
been found of great service to carry them through a 
course of drawing of more than a mere elementary na- 
ture, and the results have been in the highest degree sat- 
isfactory. There is a natural aptitude in the Romans for 
work of this kind, and the talent of the boys exhibits 
itself greatly in the facility and beauty of their drawings. 
The chief difficulty that has to be contended with is 
the want of good books of instruction. There is no good 
book, for instance, of reading-lessons for beginners, and 
no school treatise on geography or history. Such Roman 
school-literature as there is has, for the most part, been 
prepared by priests, and is of such a character as to dis- 
gust children, not only with learning, but with religion. 
This difficulty, however, is in the way of being dimin- 
ished by the preparation of less objectionable books. 



96 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

During the month of May, which is especially devoted 
to the worship of the Virgin, a short spiritual exercise in 
her honor is conducted by the teachers, in which all the 
children take part. A picture of Mary hangs in the 
school-room, and candles are lighted before it, and burn 
during the service. 

After the school is over, the boys form a procession, 
and go through the streets to their homes, accompanied 
by their teachers. Every care is taken, and every pre- 
caution observed, that the schools shall give no reason- 
able ground of complaint to the large and influential 
class of bigots, who regard them with suspicion and dis- 
trust. Those who are interested in their support are 
obliged to act with the utmost circumspection, and are 
checked by continual interference on the part of the ec- 
clesiastical authorities. • 

On Sundays and on feast-days the Abate Fabiani 
collects the boys of his school, and walks with them, or 
takes them to some garden where they may amuse them- 
selves, or visits with them some church. A sincere, 
devout, and earnest Catholic, he desires to win them 
through love to good lives, and he exerts the influence he 
gains over them to make them also sincere Christians in 
their turn. On the afternoon of Easter Sunday, I met 
him with his boys at St. Peter's. It was a sight more 
touching, and a better representation of the spirit of the 
gospel of Christ, than all the splendid ceremonial of the 
morning had been, with its pomp, its glitter, its troops of 
soldiers, the benediction of the Pope, the fans of peacock's 
feathers, and the multitude kneeling before the church. 



OEVIETO. 



OEVIETO. 



Orvieto, March, 1856. 

In the very heart of Italy, midway between Kome and 
Florence, in the recesses of the Apennines, lies Orvieto, 
a city of the Middle Ages, — though its name, said to be 
a corruption of Urbs Vet us, tells of an ancient and forgot- 
ten origin. It was never very large, never held great 
power, never played an important part in the drama of 
Italian politics, — but the arts of two centuries concen- 
trated themselves within its walls to produce a single 
splendid and complete work, and its Cathedral has long 
given glory to Orvieto, and still renders it one of the 
chief cities of pilgrimage in Italy. 

Leaving the main road between Rome and Siena at 
Montefiascone, the w T ay turns north-eastward through the 
low and desolate hills that lie above the gloomy lake of 
Bolsena. A slow- ascent leads up to a high and bare 
table-land, over w T hich the March winds, coming out from 
the hollows of the mountains, sweep fiercely. The pla- 
teau suddenly breaks upon a precipitous declivity, and 
Orvieto, till that moment unseen, appears crowning a 
rocky height which rises solitary and abrupt from a deep 



100 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

valley. So narrow is the valley, that, from the point 
where the plateau breaks, the city seems almost within 
musket-shot. But the perfect isolation of the mountain 
upon which it stands, no spur or ridge connecting it with 
those that lie nearest to it, makes the approach to the 
city slow and difficult, and gives to it a peculiar and strik- 
ing character of inaccessibility. The truncated oval cone 
of an extinct volcano, the height lifts itself with almost 
perpendicular sides for more than seven hundred feet, 
rising from the valley like a solitary islet of rock. Storms 
have washed bare its upper steeps, and have heaped up 
their crumbling debris upon the plain below, forming 
a broad buttress and embankment of stone and earth 
around its base. The city with its gray walls set upon 
the topmost edge of the scarped reddish cliff, with the 
towers of its churches and the gables and pinnacles of its 
Cathedral showing clear against the sky, and shining with 
various color in the sunlight, looks like a bas-relief cut on 
the smooth face of the rock. Near behind it, half encir- 
cling it, lies an uneven range of brown and purple moun- 
tains, as if to shut it out from the world in a seclusion of 
its own. The lower slopes of the height are rich with 
vineyards, farms, and wide-spread convents set deep in 
trees. The little Paglia winds through the green valley 
on its way to the Tiber, and vanishes among the hills. 
Before the invention of artillery, a city set on such a hill 
was impregnable by assault, and for many centuries Or- 
vieto, always faithful to the Guelphs, was a city of refuge 
for Popes driven out from Rome by its turbulent citizens, 
or flying at the approach of some foreign enemy. It is a 



ORVIETO. 101 

forcible illustration of the sorrowful history of Italy, that 
so many of her towns should have been built upon the 
bare tops of hills and mountains. 

The city loses something of its apparent beauty as, 
after the long ascent to its gates, one enters its dark and 
dirty streets. Its walls are too big for it, for it has 
shrunk since they were built. Its palaces are mostly de- 
serted, more than one of its old churches is neglected, an 
air of decay pervades it, save only in the square on 
which its Cathedral stands, where its ancient splendor 
remains undiminished, and seems even more brilliant 
than of old, from contrast with the surrounding changes 
of decline. No city in Italy boasts a more perfect monu- 
ment of the past munificence and spirit of its people. 
The seclusion and the decay of Orvieto have been the 
protection of its Duomo, — they have preserved it from 
the rifling of invaders, and from the defacing processes 
of restorers. Few buildings of the Middle Ages retain 
so completely the character of their original design, few 
afford so full a record of the lives and works of their 
early builders. 

With the exception of the Cathedral of Siena, there is 
no church in Italy in which the Italian Gothic appears in 
freer development of beauty than in this. Architecture, 
sculpture, and painting, as represented by mosaic, com- 
bined their powers and lavished their wealth in the con- 
struction of its three-gabled front. The main lines of 
construction are, indeed, somewhat meagre, and the flat 
surfaces of the front fail to produce those grand effects 
of deep shadow which belong to the carved recesses and 



102 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

deep-sunk portals of Northern cathedrals ; but these de- 
fects are compensated by the rich sculpture of its marble 
piers, by the gold and azure of its pictured gables, and 
by the host of guardian busts and statues around its 
central rose-window. It seems like the illuminated page 
of a marble missal, — the adorned initial letter set at the 
entrance of the great volume written in stone. As the 
sunlight falls on the gleaming front, — its glowing colors 
harmonized by the slow artistic processes of time, — it 
presents a character of beauty unknown to the more 
sombre Gothic of the North. Nor is the interior of the 
church unsuitable to its external richness, though the 
splendor of the outside is tempered within to an impres- 
sive solemnity. The tall, banded marble columns of the 
nave, the long procession of statues of apostles at their 
feet, the frescoes on the walls of choir and chapels, the 
elaborate carvings of wood and gratings of iron, the 
mingling of patience, labor, and art in every portion of 
the work, not only give proof of the fervent spirit of the 
builders of the Cathedral, but suggest many a devout 
memory and sacred association. 

The erection of such a building is no solitary and ex- 
ceptional fact in the history of the community by whom 
it was accomplished. It is an illustration of the general 
spirit of their life, of its strongest faith, its deepest emo- 
tions, its most persistent impulses. The building of 
cathedrals is, in truth, one of the main features of the 
social history of Europe during the Middle Ages. In 
England, in Spain, in France, in the Low Countries, in 
Germany, in Italy, in Sicily, these magnificent monu- 



ORVIETO. 103 

ments of genius and devotion rose in rapid succession dur- 
ing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By a great im- 
pulse of popular energy, by a long combination of popular 
effort with trained skill, cathedrals, each requiring almost 
the revenues of a kingdom for its construction, sprang 
up from the soil in the hearts of scores of rival cities. 
There have been no works of architecture in later times 
comparable with them in grandeur of design, in elabo- 
rateness of detail, in that broad unity of conception which, 
while leaving the largest scope for the play of fancy and 
the exercise of special ability by every workman, sub- 
ordinated the multifarious differences of parts into one 
harmonious whole. The true cathedral architecture par- 
took of the qualities which Nature displays in her noblest 
works, — out of infinite varieties of generally resembling, 
but intrinsically differing parts, creating a perfect and 
concordant result. 

But the period during which the great cathedrals were 
built was comparatively short. After the fourteenth 
century, the practice of cathedral architecture of the old 
kind fell fast into desuetude. In the fifteenth century, 
canons of taste were established, and modes of judgment 
introduced, which, symptomatic as they were of a gen- 
eral change in the spiritual condition of society, debased 
the standard of an art whose capacities of execution 
were daily growing more limited. The traditional knowl- 
edge of the methods of the unrivalled masters of two 
centuries before, such masters as Erwin von Steinbach, 
Arnolfo di Lapo, and Lorenzo Maitani, rapidly died 
out. The Renaissance — the birth of a pseudo-classi- 



104 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

cism — was the destruction of Gothic architecture. The 
rules of Vitruvius were studied as the only rules of 
desirable and excellent building. The original works of 
the time between the fall of the Roman Empire and the 
irruption of Roman literature were esteemed barbarous 
and unworthy of admiration. Architecture was hence- 
forth to be imitative. It is a curious fact, that at Rome 
itself there is not one truly Gothic church. Whatever 
may be the architectural merit of St. Peter's, it is not 
to be compared, in originality of conception or in thought- 
fulness of detail, with any of the great Gothic buildings. 
It belongs to the architecture of the intellect, — not to 
that of the imagination. Its chief feature is its size, not 
its design. St. Peter's is contemporaneous with the Ref- 
ormation, and the character of the religion of the Papal 
court at that time is well perpetuated in a church, built 
less as a place of worship than as a magnificent theatre 
for the splendid displays of Papal ceremonials. Protes- 
tantism failed to protest against the style of ecclesiastical 
architecture characteristic of Rome, but, on the contrary, 
often strangely adopted it for its own churches, and not 
infrequently turned its iconoclastic zeal against the more 
ancient style, which, though sometimes embodying the 
extremest superstitions, embodied also the expression of 
a real, if a mistaken, piety. 

The best Gothic architecture, indeed, wherever it may 
be found, affords evidence that the men who executed it 
were moved by a true fervor of religious faith. In 
building a church, they did not forget that it was to be 
the house of God. No portion of their building was too 



ORVIETO. 105 

minute, no portion too obscure, to be perfected with thor- 
ough and careful labor. The work was not let out by 
contract, or taken up as a profitable job. The architect 
of a cathedral might live all his life within the shadow 
of its rising walls, and die no richer than when lie gave 
the sketch ; but he was well repaid by the delight of see- 
ing his design grow from an imagination to a reality, and 
by spending his days in the accepted service of the Lord. 

For the building of a cathedral, however, there needs 
not only a spirit of religious zeal among the workmen, 
but a faith no less ardent among the people for whom the 
church is designed. The enormous expense of construc- 
tion, an expense which for generations must be con- 
tinued without intermission, is not to be met except by 
liberal and willing general contributions. Papal indul- 
gences and the offerings of pilgrims may add something 
to the revenues, but the main cost of building must be 
borne by the community over whose house-tops the 
cathedral is to rise and to extend its benign protection. 

Cathedrals were essentially expressions of the popu- 
lar will and the popular faith. They were the work 
neither of ecclesiastics nor of feudal barons. They 
represent, in a measure, the decline of feudalism, and 
the prevalence of the democratic element in society. 
No sooner did a city achieve its freedom than its people 
began to take thought for a cathedral. Of all the arts, 
architecture is the most quickly responsive to the in- 
stincts and the desires of a people. And in the ca- 
thedrals, the popular beliefs, hopes, fears, fancies, and 
aspirations found expression, and were perpetuated in a 



106 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

language intelligible to all. The life of the Middle Ages 
is recorded on their walls. When the democratic ele- 
ment was subdued, as in Cologne by a Prince Bishop, 
or in Milan by a succession of tyrants, the cathedral 
was left unfinished. When, in the fifteenth century, all 
over Europe, the turbulent, but energetic liberties of 
the people were suppressed, the building of cathedrals 
ceased. 

The grandeur, beauty, and lavish costliness of the 
Duomo at Orvieto, or of any other of the greater cathe- 
drals, implies a persistency and strength of purpose 
which could be the result only of the influence over the 
souls of men of a deep and abiding emotion. Minor 
motives may often have borne a part in the excitement 
of feeling, — motives of personal ambition, civic pride, 
boastfulness, and rivalry ; but a work that requires the 
combined and voluntary offerings and labor of successive 
generations presupposes a condition of the higher spirit- 
ual nature which no motives but those connected with 
religion are sufficient to support. It becomes, then, a 
question of more than merely historic interest, a question, 
indeed, touching the very foundation of the spiritual de- 
velopment and civilization of modern Europe, to investi- 
gate the nature and origin of that wide-spread impulse 
w r hich, for two centuries, led the people of different races 
and widely diverse habits of life and thought, to the 
construction of cathedrals, — buildings such as our own 
age, no less than those which have immediately preceded 
it, seems incompetent to execute, and indifferent to at- 
tempt. 



ORVIETO. 107 

It is impossible to fix a precise date for the first signs 
of vigorous and vital consciousness which gave token 
of the birth of a new life out of the dead remains of the 
ancient world. The tenth century is often spoken of as 
the darkest period of the Dark Ages ; but even in its 
dull sky there were some breaks of light, and, very soon 
after it had passed, the dawn began to brighten. The 
epoch of the completion of a thousand years from the 
birth of Christ, which had, almost from the first preach- 
ing of Christianity, been looked forward to as the time 
for the destruction of the world and the advent of the 
Lord to judge the earth, had passed without the fulfil- 
ment of these ecclesiastical prophecies and popular an- 
ticipations. There can be little doubt that among the 
mass of men there was a sense of relief, naturally fol- 
lowed by a certain invigoration of spirit. The eleventh 
century was one of comparative intellectual vigor. The 
twelfth was still more marked by mental activity and 
force. The world was fairly awake. Civilization was 
taking the first steps of its modern course. The relations 
of the various classes of society were changing. A wider 
liberty of thought and action was established ; and while 
this led to a fresh exercise of individual power and char- 
acter, it conduced also to combine men together in new 
forms of united effort for the attainment of common ob- 
jects and in the pursuit of common interests. 

Corresponding with, but perhaps subsequent by a short 
interval to the pervading intellectual movement, was a 
strong and quickening development of the moral sense 
among men. The periods distinguished in modern his- 



108 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

tory by a condition of intellectual excitement and fervor 
have been usually, perhaps always, followed at a short 
interval by epochs of more or less intense moral energy, 
which has borne a near relation to the nature of the 
moral elements in the previous intellectual movement. 
The Renaissance, an intellectual period of pure immoral- 
ity, was followed close by the Reformation, whose first 
characteristic was that of protest. The Elizabethan age? 
in which the minds of men were full of large thoughts, 
and their imaginations rose to the highest flights, led in 
the noble sacrifices, the great achievements, the wild 
vagaries of Puritanism. The age of Voltaire and the 
infidels was followed by the fierce energy, the infidel 
morality of the French Revolution. And so at this 
earlier period, the general intellectual awakening, char- 
acterized as it was by simple impulses, and regulated 
in great measure by the teachings of the Church, pro- 
duced a strong outbreak of moral earnestness which 
exhibited itself in curiously similar forms through the 
whole of Europe. 

The distinguishing feature of this moral revolution was 
the purely religious direction which it took. For a time 
it seemed that the moral sense of men had become one 
with their religious instincts and emotions. Religion lost 
its formality, and the religious creed of the times pos- 
sessed itself thoroughly of the spirits of men. The 
separation which commonly exists between the professed 
faith of the masses of men and their intimate moral 
convictions, the separation between faith expressed in 
words and faith expressed in actions, was in large meas- 



ORVIETO. 109 

ure closed over. The creed even of the most intelligent 
was very imperfect. It was based on material concep- 
tions, and was far from corresponding with the higher 
spiritual truths of Christianity. The creed of the igno- 
rant was, for the most part, a system of irrational and 
contradictory opinions, in which a few simple notions of a 
material heaven and hell held the first rank. But these 
notions were believed in as realities. And, moreover, in 
accordance with a general law of human nature, the very 
materialism of the common creed afforded nourishment 
to religious mysticism and the ecstasies of devotion. 

It is at such times as this, when moral energy corre- 
sponds with and supports a condition of spiritual enthu- 
siasm, that the powers of men rise to their highest level. 
Personal interests are absorbed in devotion to great spir- 
itual ideas. Enthusiasm neither submits to the common 
laws of reason, nor is bound by the established customs 
of society. It makes its abode in the New Jerusalem, 
and builds for itself mystical mansions of the spirit. But 
it must find external expression, and must relieve itself 
in action ; for, when the full tide of faith floods the heart, 
it brings to the soul a sense of strength above its own, 
and compels it to its exercise. Thus, at this period, the 
religious excitement found vent in tw T o extraordinary and 
utterly unparalleled expressions, — the Crusades and the 
Cathedrals. And the depth of the inward feeling was mar- 
vellously manifested by the long succession of exhausting 
efforts, by the persistence of hope, and by the actual 
accomplishment of works of the grandest design, during 
a course of more than two hundred years. Energy 



110 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

and enthusiasm had become, as it were, hereditary among 
men. A real faith in the Divine government of the earth, 
trust in the Divine power, zeal in the service of God, 
combined with selfish hopes and fears, and with heathen 
notions of propitiation, to inspire the various people of 
Europe with strength for the most arduous undertakings. 
Deus vult was the animating watchword of the times ; the 
cross was the universal symbol, — a symbol not merely 
of sacrifice, but of victory. 

Such spiritual conditions as were then exhibited are 
possible only during periods of mental twilight, when the 
imagination is stronger than the reason, and shows the 
objects of this world in fanciful and untrue proportion. 
With the advance of civilization and enlightenment, pop- 
ular enthusiasm becomes more and more rare, and, as a 
stimulus to combined and long-continued action, almost 
wholly ceases. Principles of one sort or another occupy, 
but do not supply its place. The works which it has 
produced cannot be repeated ; for in their production it 
counts no cost extravagant, no labor vain, which makes 
them worthier offerings of faith, and more perfect ex- 
pressions of devotion. 

The general features of the religious excitement which 
began in the eleventh century are thus broadly marked 
and easily stated. The chief historic facts of the time 
are sufficiently clear. The details of the Crusades are, 
for the most part, well known ; but much obscurity still 
rests over the manner in which the popular impulses took 
form in the building of cathedrals. The old chronicles, 
full of battles and sieges, have little space for accounts of 



ORVIETO. Ill 

the great works which were going on within the walls 
of quiet towns, and in the chief squares of busy cities. 
The records of building, with all the illustration they 
might afford of the thoughts, feelings, and ways of life 
of the people, have in great part perished. Here and 
there something more than the mere name of the archi- 
tect and the date of construction has been preserved ; but 
the lives and labors of the builders, the modes of work, 
the zeal of the community, are, for the most part, only to 
be inferred from the character of the building itself. 

Fortunately, the position and the circumstances of Or- 
vieto, and the fact that its cathedral was not begun till a 
comparatively late date, have been favorable to the pres- 
ervation of a mass of records which throw a vivid light, 
not only on the methods of construction, but also on the 
character and customs of the builders and the people of 
the town, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and even the 
fifteenth centuries.* 

The immediate motive for the erection of this cathe- 
dral is to be found in one of the most famous events of 
the dogmatic history of the Middle Ages, and by this 

* The subsequent narrative is derived, in great measure, from the 
Storia del Duomo cli Orvieto. [Dal Padre G. della Valle.J 4to. Roma, 
1790. The most valuable part of the volume is the long appendix 
of Documents, taken mostly from the manuscript records of the 
Duomo. The volume of plates in folio, which accompanies the 
Padre della Valle's work, contains representations of some of the 
most important works of Art in the Cathedral, and is of much value 
as illustrating the history of Italian Art. There is no other building 
in Italy which surpasses the Duomo of Orvieto as a storehouse of 
precious works 



m TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

circumstance the building is connected in close associa- 
tion with one of the most wide-spread and splendid cere- 
monials of the Roman Church. This event was the 
Miracle of Bolsena, from which the festival of the Cor- 
pus Domini, celebrated wherever the Roman Church 
extends, takes its date. It is one of the chief glories of 
the Church Triumphant. 

In the year 12 Go, Pope Urban IV., flying from dan- 
gers that surrounded him in Rome, " poco fidandosi di 
queW istabile cittadinanza" retired to the safe refuge of 
Orvieto. All Italy was in a wretched state of turbulence 
and war. But on this solitary and inaccessible rock there 
was quiet, and within the shelter of its friendly walls 
the Pope might dwell securely. And here also, at this 
time, Thomas Aquinas, the most famous man of his 
age, who was even then stamping the impress of his 
thought upon the whole system of Romanist doctrine, 
had taken up his abode, and was giving public instruc- 
tion in a course of lectures on theology. One day, in 
the summer of the next year, according to the tradition, 
the Pope was surprised at the sudden appearance of 
a strange priest, who, in great agitation, threw himself 
at his feet, and with tears, confessing his past want 
of faith, and praying for absolution from his sin, re- 
lated the following story. He said that he was a Ger- 
man priest, that he had long been troubled with doubts 
as to the Real Presence in the Holy Sacrifice of the 
Mass, and that, in hope of removing such pernicious 
questionings from his soul, he had undertaken a pilgrim- 
age to Rome for the purpose of strengthening his faith 



ORVIETO. 113 

at the tombs of the Apostles. He had reached the little 
town of Bolsena, which lies just on the border of the 
lake to which it has given its name, and within the 
diocese of Orvieto, and there had engaged in the cele- 
bration of the Mass. But in the very midst of the 
service he was assailed by his old doubts, when, to his 
wonder and dismay, as he raised the consecrated wafer 
and broke it, he beheld drops of blood falling from it 
upon the sacred napkin laid under the chalice, and, as 
they touched the linen cloth, spreading out upon it into 
the likeness of the Saviour's countenance.* 

* One of the series of Eaphael's pictures of the Church Trium- 
phant in the Stanze of the Vatican has made the scene of this miracle 
familiar. His imagination does not seem to have been touched by the 
subject, and the picture is a mere fancy piece, cold in feeling and 
devoid of any expression of faith. 

A miracle of similar character to that of Bolsena is reported to have 
occurred at Canterbury, in the time of St. Odo, about the middle of 
the tenth century. Some of the priests of Canterbury were troubled 
with dcubts like those by which the German priest was possessed. 
The Saint prayed that these doubts might be removed, and dur- 
ing the performance of the Masaj at the breaking of the Host, blood 
dropped from it into the chalice. By this miraele the doubters were 
brought into the true faith. — See Butler's Lives of the Saints : St. 
Odo. — Many similar miracles are reported as having taken place in 
Spain. "No Christian country," says Mr. Ford, "has offered more 
wonderful evidences of the fact" of a corporeal presence in the Host. 
At Ivorra, a portion of a consecrated wafer is preserved, called Lo 
Sant Dupte, "the Holy Doubt," from which blood gushed out, to con- 
found a doubting priest; — at Daroca, in New Castile, is the tradition 
of Los Santos Corporales, — six Hosts, which, in 1239, being hidden 
from the Moors, turned to bleeding flesh. 

Thus has the Eoman Church corporealized a spiritual symbol, — 
disregarding both the meaning and the letter of its institution. A 
8 



114 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

The miracle occurred at a fortunate time, not only for 
the removal of the doubts of the German priests, but for 
the interests of the Roman Church, by affording a decisive 
argument against the heretical doctrines in regard to the 
Real Presence, which had spread widely among the ranks 
of the clergy, and had excited much alarm in the minds 
of the ecclesiastical authorities. Urban, rejoicing at so 
signal a display of the divine grace, at once dispatched 
the Bishop of Orvieto to Bolsena to bring back the 
sacred corporate or napkin, for safe-keeping in his imme- 
diate possession. The next day the Holy Father himself 
descended to the valley, attended by his Cardinals, the 
officers of his court, the chief citizens, and many of the 
common people, to meet the Bishop on his return. The 
two processions, — for the Bishop came accompanied by 
great numbers of the people of Bolsena and the neigh- 
boring towns, filled with excitement at the news of the 
prodigy, — the two processions met at the bridge of Rio- 
chiaro. The Pope fell upon his knees in adoration of 
the sacred cloth, and, taking it in his hands, bore it up 
the hill to a place of secure deposit in the episcopal 
church of Orvieto. It is said that for use on this solemn 
and memorable occasion, Thomas Aquinas composed the 
service which is still employed on the recurring anniver- 
saries of the day in the Roman churches the world over. 
Urban published a bull, in which he appointed Thursday 

natural explanation has been suggested for these miracles, in the 
fact that under certain conditions blood-red animalcula are found in 
some sorts of flour, and in the bread made from it, in quantities suffi- 
cient to produce the effects supposed to be miraculous. 



ORVIETO. 115 

of the week after Pentecost as the day on which, in each 
year, the festival of Corpus Christi should be celebrated, 
and a new dogma was added, by authority, to the creed 
of the Church. 

" Tantum ergo sacramentum 

Veneremur cernui ; 
Et antiquum docuraentum 

Novo cedat ritui ; 
Prcestat fides supplementum 

Sensuum defectui." 

Whatever opinion may be held as to the reality of the 
asserted miracle, there is a concurrence of authorities as 
to the fact of the popular belief in it, and of the relig- 
ious enthusiasm that followed on this belief among the 
citizens of Orvieto and the neighboring districts. Some 
time, however, elapsed before this enthusiasm exhibited 
itself in any permanent external manifestation. By de- 
grees, the idea of a new and splendid church, in which 
the miraculous corporate should be preserved for all 
future time, and which should serve not only as a fitting 
memorial of the miracle, but also as a proof of the devo- 
tion of the citizens to the Virgin Mother of God, seems 
to have taken root in the minds of the people, and per- 
haps the more easily from a feeling of rivalry between 
Orvieto and its neighbor, Siena, in which latter city a 
splendid cathedral had been begun half a century be- 
fore, and was now approaching its superb, though imper- 
fect completion. 

The first document that has been found relating to the 
proposed building bears date the 2 2d day of June, 1284, 



116 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

and in this the project " of erecting a new and honorable 
church in honor of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary " 
is spoken of as one that has been for a long time enter- 
tained. It is amusing, as an illustration of the persis- 
tency of one of the minor traits of human nature, that 
the earliest records of the Cathedral should relate to a 
quarrel between the members of a sort of preliminary 
building-committee — the Bishop and his chapter — - con- 
cerning the arrangement to be made between them in 
regard to the ground, in which they had joint interest 
upon which the new church was to stand. The difficult} 
was not settled without the intervention of the Papa 
authority, and it was not until the year 1290 that tnt 
work of construction was actually begun. 

The 13th of November, the day of San Brizio, the 
patron saint of the city, was chosen as the day for laying 
the corner-stone of the great edifice. " And so," says 
one of the chroniclers, u the Pope, Nicholas IV., being in 
Orvieto, with the Court of Cardinals and other Prelates, 
there was a solemn procession, with His Holiness^ at its 
head, followed by Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, and 
other Prelates, by the Clergy of the city, with the Magis- 
trates, the Podesta, the Captain, the Seniors, and all the 
Council, with infinite numbers of gentlemen and citi- 
zens, women and children. And the Pope went down to 
the foundations, and with his own hand placed the first 
stone in the mortar, and with many other ceremonies 
blessed the future temple in secida seculorum" 

Lorenzo Maitani of Siena had given the design for 
the church, and had been appointed the chief architect. 



ORVIETO. 117 

A better choice could not have been made. Already the 
means for carrying forward the work had been provided 
by free-will offerings, by lands given in fee by their pro- 
prietors, by taxes imposed by the magistracy, by annual 
tributes laid upon territory subject to the city, as well as 
by the offerings of many churches far and near, and of 
the pilgrims who were annually attracted to Orvieto by 
the fame of a miracle-working picture of the Madonna, 
wdiich had been given to the city, according to tradition, 
by its patron saint. 

Nor was the work left to depend simply on the gen- 
eral interest and zeal, unwarmed by special incitements. 
The Pope bestowed liberal indulgences on those who took 
part in forwarding it by contributions or by labor, and his 
example in this respect was followed in after times by 
his successors. The list of contributions to the building 
during the first year gives a curious glimpse of the char 
acter of the times, and of the means used for the execu 
tion of such a w 7 ork. It begins thus : — 

MCCLXXXX. 

Urbevetellum solvit Cereum librarum XY. Marcus II. Bra 
vium aureorum VIII.,^ 

* The word bravium, or blavium, seems to be a corruption of pal- 
lium. Thus, in an extract from the Florentine Archives, ( Gaye, Car- 
teggio, I. 449,) we read, " 60 floreni auri et sol. 12 pro prelio blavii 
sen paid daarum petiarum samiti jrilosi." It was used to designate 
rich cloth of various sorts for tapestry, hangings of churches, prizes 
at games and races, and must have borne a ready marketable value. 
" 11 drappo verde" of Verona (Inferno, XV. 122) was, no doubt, a 
bravium. Probably part of the bravia, as well as of the wax contrib- 
uted to the church, was used in church ceremonies, and part was 
sold. 



118 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

which may be translated, " Orvieto paid fifteen pounds of 
wax, two [silver] marks, and cloth of the value of eight 
gold pieces." The town of Clusium, more liberal than 
Orvieto itself, sent thirty pounds of wax, two marks, 
four horses, and five hundred loads of grain. Little Mon- 
tepulciano even, from the small resources of her vine- 
growing hill, sent fifteen pounds of wax, two marks, and 
two horses. The abbey Sancti Salvatoris made a liberal 
offering. Aquapendente, San Lorenzo, Bolsena, which 
appears on the list as Yolsinium, recalling its ancient 
fame, Radicofani, and many other towns near and far, 
gave contributions according to their zeal or means. 
The Lord of Farnese, Count Guido of Santa Flora, the 
Lord of the Sons of the Bear [Orsini] of Mugnano, and 
numerous feudal barons beside, gave horses, wax, and 
grain to the new church. Altogether, the contributions 
recorded for this year from towns and barons amount to 
731 pounds of wax, 24 marks, 29 horses, 3,858 loads of 
grain, and bravia worth 84 gold pieces. Nor does this 
list include the more numerous minor offerings of pil- 
grims and citizens to the treasury of the works. The 
gifts of horses must have been of especial value, from 
the fact that the materials for building were all to be 
brought from a distance, and to be carried up the diffi- 
cult ascent to the very crest of the mountain of Orvieto. 
The labor of transportation added vastly to the costli- 
ness of the edifice, but the spirit in which it was under- 
taken was sufficient to overcome whatever obstacles op- 
posed themselves to its progress. 

The great foundations were scarcely laid, fundamenta 



ORVIETO. 119 

quce fuerunt terribilia ad videndum, before a Board of 
Works was established by the popular authorities of the 
city, to superintend and direct the erection of the Cathe- 
dral. It was, in fact, a special magistracy with full pow- 
ers, so far as their charge extended, but bound to render, 
from time to time, an account of the income and the ex- 
penses to the representatives of the people. The consti- 
tution of the government of Orvieto seems to have been 
democratic, except in so far as the powers of the elective 
magistracy were subordinate to the authority of the 
Pope, or of his delegates. That there was rarely any 
collision between the Papal and the popular will may be 
inferred from the fact, that, after the twelfth century, dur- 
ing some part of which Orvieto was troubled by heresy, 
through the most violent and divided times, the city re- 
mained attached and faithful to the interests and the 
party of the Papacy. 

For some years the Cathedral advanced rapidly. In- 
deed, so speedy was its progress, that in the year 1298, 
Boniface VIII., a Pope familiar to the readers of Dante, 
celebrated a pontifical service within its unfinished in- 
closure, on the festival of the Assumption of the Vir- 
gin. The work of laying the foundation and the lower 
walls not demanding the continual presence of the archi- 
tect, Maitani remained at his native Siena, coming to 
Orvieto only as occasion might require. But in the year 
1310, twenty years after the laying of the corner-stone, 
the building having risen so far that his constant over- 
sight was needed, and some portions of the completed 
work showing symptoms of weakness, Maitani was in- 



120 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

vited to become a citizen of Orvieto, with promise of a 
monthly salary " of twelve florins of good and pure gold, 
and of just weight," with leave to bring such scholars as 
he might wish, who should be employed upon the build- 
ing, with the provision that he and his family should be 
exempt from every tax and burden, and with permis- 
sion to himself to wear whatever arms he might choose. 
Upon these terms he came, and from his coming may be 
dated the second, and, in relation to Art, the most im- 
portant period in the building of the Cathedral. The 
fagade had already reached a considerable height, and 
now began to exhibit that lavish display of works of the 
various arts which still makes it one of the chief glories 
of Italy. 

The immense amount of labor employed in the con- 
struction, and of labor of the most diverse description, 
from the highest efforts of the inventive imagination, to 
the simplest mechanical hammering of blocks of stone, 
led to a careful organization of the whole body of work- 
men, and to the setting aside of a special building, the 
Loggia, on the Cathedral square, for the use of the mas- 
ters in the different arts. Each art had its chief, and 
over all presided " the Master of the Masters," skilled no 
less in painting, mosaic, and sculpture, than in architec- 
ture. The larger number of the most accomplished artists 
came at this time from Siena and Pisa, where the growth 
of the arts had a little earlier spring than in Florence.* 

* The following passage from a letter of the Heads of the People, 
7" Presidi del Popolo, to the Signiory of Siena, dated 12th May, 1409, 
shows the high place which the master-workmen of the latter city 



ORVIETO. 121 

Whatever designs and models were required for any 
portion of the work were first submitted for approval to 
the head of the special art to which they belonged, and, if 
approved by him, were then laid before the Master of the 
Masters, and the Board of Superintendents of the Work. 
These officers occupied a house opposite the front of the 
Duomo, in which they assembled for deliberation, and 
where the records of their proceedings were kept in due 
form by a notary, who every week registered the works 
accomplished, the cost of materials, and the wages of 
those employed on the building.* 

Beside the masters and men at work at Orvieto, many 
others were distributed in various parts of Italy, em- 
ployed in obtaining materials, and especially in quarrying 
and cutting marble for the Cathedral, f Black marble 

had held for more than a century at Orvieto : — " Vestrique cives in 
honore eximio magistratus tarn incliti operis obtineant principatum a 
primordio fnndamenti." Gave, Carteggio, I. 89. 

* This office was established in 1321, and the Padre della Valle, 
writing at the end of the last century, says, " It has lasted even to 
the present day." A delightful instance of permanence. 

f In the summer of 1321 more than fifty masters of the various arts 
were receiving pay in the service of the Fabbrica. Not quite half of 
this number were employed at Orvieto itself ; the others were else- 
where overseeing the preparation of materials. A great part of the 
shaping of the marbles and timber for use in the building was per- 
formed at the places from which they were obtained, in order to di- 
minish the cost of carriage. The preparation of working drawings to 
send to the different stations of work must have been one of the most 
important occupations of the masters who remained at Orvieto. Of 
the number of workmen not yet inscribed as masters in their respec- 
tive arts there seems to be no record; but it must have been very 
large. 



122 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

was got from the quarries near Siena, alabaster from 
Sant' Antimo, near Radicofani, and white marble from 
the mountains of Carrara. But the supply of the rich- 
est and rarest marbles came from Rome, the ruins of 
whose ancient magnificence afforded ample stores of cost- 
liest material to the builders not only of the Papal city 
itself, but of Naples, of Orvieto, and of many another 
Italian town. The Greek statuary marble, which had 
once formed part of some ancient temple, was trans- 
ferred to the hands of the new sculptors, to be worked 
into forms far different in character and in execution 
from those of Grecian Art. The accumulated riches 
of Pagan Rome were distributed for the adornment of 
Christian churches. 

To destroy the remains of Paganism was regarded as 
a scarcely less acceptable service than to erect new build- 
ings for Christian worship. Petrarch had not yet begun 
to lament the barbarism of such destruction. The beauty 
of the ancient world was recognized as yet only by a few 
artists, powerless to save its vanishing remains. Not yet 
had the intoxicating sense of this beauty begun to re- 
corrupt and reeffeminate Italy. A century later, Rome 
began to preserve in part the few remaining memorials 
of her ancient splendor ; and not many years after, the 
Renaissance, with its degraded taste and debasing prin- 
ciples, set in, and the influence of ancient Art on mod- 
ern morals was displayed. 

The workmen who labored in quarrying at Rome dur- 
ing the winter retired in summer to the healthy heights 
of the Alban mountains, and there, among the ruins 



ORVIETO. 123 

of ancient villas, continued their work, and thence dis- 
patched the blocks, on wagons drawn by buffaloes, to 
their distant destination. The entries in the book of the 
records of the Fabbrica show with what a network of 
laborers, in the service of the Cathedral, the neighboring 
provinces were overspread. Thus, under date of the 
13th of September, 1321, there is an entry of the ex- 
pense of the transport of marbles, and of travertine for 
coarse work, from Valle del Cero, from Barontoli, from 
Tivoli, and from Rigo on the Tiber; and on the 11th 
of the same month, sixty florins of gold and fourteen lire 
in silver were paid for the transport, with sixteen pairs 
of buffaloes, from the forest of Aspretolo, of sixteen loads 
of fir timber for the soffit of the Cathedral, and one beam 
of the largest size. Again, there is an entry of the pay- 
ment for bringing four great pieces of marble, of the 
weight of 8,100 pounds, from the quarter of St. Paul at 
Rome, and a little later another for 14,250 pounds of 
marble, also from Rome. On the 21st of June, nine lire 
and eleven soldi had been spent in the purchase of an 
ass, — " quern somarium, Mag. Laurentius caput Magis- 
trorum operis et Camerarius emerunt pro portandis ferris 
et rebus Magistrorum operis Romam" From the quarry 
of Montepisi came loads of marble for the main portal 
and for the side-doors ; and from Arezzo, famous of old 
for its red vases, was brought clay for the glass-furnace 
for the making of mosaics. On the 3d of August, a mes- 
senger was dispatched with letters from the architect to 
the workmen at Albano, " Magistris operis qui laborant 
marmora apud Castrum Albania prope TJrbemP Such 



124 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

entries as these extend over many years, and show, not 
only the activity displayed in the building, but also its 
enormous costliness, and the long foresight and wide 
knowledge of means required in its architect. 

Trains of wagons, loaded with material for the Cathe- 
dral, made their slow progress toward the city from the 
north and the south, from the shores of the Adriatic 
and of the Mediterranean. The heavy carts which had 
creaked under their burdens along the solitudes of the 
Campagna or the Maremma, which had toiled up the for- 
est-covered heights that overhang Viterbo, through the 
wild passes of Monte Cimino, or whose shouting team- 
sters had held back their straining buffaloes down the 
bare sides of the mountains of Radicofani, arrived in un- 
ending succession in the valley of the Paglia. The worst 
part of the way, however, still lay before them in the 
steep ascent to the uplifted city. But here the zeal of 
voluntary labor came in to lighten the work of the tug- 
ging buffaloes. Bands of citizens enrolled themselves to 
drag the carts up the rise of the mountain, — and on feast- 
days the people of the neighboring towns flocked in to 
take their share in the work, and to gain the indulgences 
offered to those who should give a helping hand. We 
may imagine these processions of laborers in the service 
of the house of the Lord advancing to the sound of the 
singing of hymns or the chanting of penitential psalms ; 
but of these scenes no formal description has been left. 
The enthusiasm which was displayed was of the same 
order as that which, a century before, had been shown at 
the building of the magnificent Cathedral of Chartres, 



ORVIETO. 125 

but probably less intense in its expression, owing to the 
change in the spirit of the times. Then men and women, 
sometimes to the number of a thousand, of all ranks and 
conditions, harnessed themselves to the wagons loaded 
with materials for building, or with supplies for the work- 
men. No one was admitted into the company who did 
not first make confession of his sins, " and lay down at 
the foot of the altar all hatred and anger." As cart after 
cart was dragged in by its band of devotees, it was set in 
its place in a circle of wagons around the church. Can- 
dles were lighted upon them all, as upon so many altars. 
At night the people watched, singing hymns and songs 
of praise, or inflicting discipline upon themselves, with 
prayers for the forgiveness of their sins. 

Processions of Juggernaut, camp-meetings, the excite- 
ments of a revival, are exhibitions, under another form, 
of the spirit shown in these enrolments of the people as 
beasts of burden. Such excitements rarely leave any 
noble or permanent result. But it was the distinctive 
characteristic of this period of religious enthusiasm that 
there were men honestly partaking in the general emo- 
tion, yet of such strong individuality of genius, that, in- 
stead of being carried away by the wasteful current of 
feeling, they were able to guide and control to great and 
noble purposes the impulsive activity and bursting ener- 
gies of the time. Religious excitements, so called, of 
whatever kind, imply one of two things, — either a mor- 
bid state of the physical or mental system, or a low and 
materialistic conception of the truths of the spiritual life. 
They belong as much to the body as to the soul, and they 



126 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

seek vent for the energies they arouse in physical mani- 
festations. Between the groaning of a set of miserable 
sinners on the anxious seats, and the toiling of men and 
women at the ropes of carts laden with stone for a church, 
there is a close relation. The cause and nature of the 
emotion which influences them are the same. The dif- 
ference of its mode of exhibition arises from original 
differences of character, from changes in religious creeds^ 
from the varied circumstances of different ages. It is 
a difference exhibited in the contrast between the bare 
boards of a Methodist meeting-house and the carved 
walls of a Catholic cathedral. 

It was the fear of hell, rather than the hope of heav- 
en, which, working in men's minds, lay at the foundation 
of these mediseval achievements. Unless the conception 
of heaven be lowered to that of a Mahometan para- 
dise, unless heaven be made the scene of merely sen- 
sual delights, it is more difficult for the imagination to 
behold its promised joys as realities than to picture to 
itself the actual existence of the coarse and earthy tor- 
ments of the vulgar notion of hell. The Church has 
found its power easily increased by strengthening the 
force and domination of the dread of future punishment. 
For the God of love it substituted the God of vengeance. 
The popular fancy dwelt continually on the danger of 
damnation, on the variety of the punishments of hell. 
The scenes of the Inferno were represented even at festi- 
vals. In 1304, in the month of May, the gay time of the 
year, one of the Florentine companies of revellers gave 
notice to the citizens, that whoever would hear news of the 



ORVIETO. 127 

other world should assemble on a certain morning on the 
bridge alia Carraia across the Arno. Boats and rafts 
were moored on the river below 5 and there this joyous 
company represented the scenes and sufferings of hell with 
fires and torments, some of the band counterfeiting horri- 
ble demons, and others appearing as naked souls in woe, 
with great howling and uproar, frightful to hear and to 
see. In the midst of the scene, the bridge, overladen 
with the mass of spectators, suddenly broke down ; so 
that, says the chronicler, " the game changed to earnest, 
and many went in reality to learn news of the other 
world." * 

To this pervading sentiment of fear, combined often 
with nobler emotions and with high spiritual conceptions, 
Gothic architecture gave expression in many of its most 
characteristic features. The grotesque, which enters so 
largely into its details, was an expression of a natural 
rebound of the spirit from the constraint of a severe and 
compulsive creed. There is a fear which is simply op- 
pressive, which crushes out the principle of life, — and 
also a fear which, while it impedes the development of 
some portion of the spiritual faculties, vitalizes and stim- 
ulates, in combination with other principles, the general 
powers of the soul. The one finds its expression in the 
dead gloom of low-browed Hindu temples, — the other, 
in the solemn, but aspiring grandeur of Gothic cathedrals. 
On the fagade of the Duomo of Orvieto, upon one of 
the piers at the side of its doors of entrance, were sculp- 
tured representations of the Last Judgment and of Hell. 

* Giov. Villani, Lib. viii. Cap. lxx. 



128 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

As years went on, the beautiful church, "the palace 
of God," advanced rapidly toward completion. Already, 
as we have seen, in 1321, the timbers for its roof were 
brought from the forest where they had been hewn. The 
sculptures and mosaics upon its gorgeous fagade, display- 
ing "doctrine and life, colors and light in one," were 
actively carried forward. The great windows were filled 
with slabs of translucent alabaster, through which a mel- 
low light fell into its marble aisles. The bronze figure 
of the Virgin to surmount the main portal was cast, and 
set in the place which it still holds, looking down upon the 
worshippers who enter the church dedicated to her honor. 
The beauty and lavish magnificence of the building had 
taken visible form in the thirty years that had passed 
since its " foundations, terrible to behold," were laid, and 
that which had been only a vision in the imagination of 
the architect was now a reality plain to the sight of all 
men. The Duomo already ministered to the civic pride 
of the people of Orvieto, and the recorded contributions 
for its support for the year 1323 amount to nearly 8,000 
lire, — a large sum in those times, when the chief ar- 
chitect received but forty-eight lire a month, and the 
monthly pay of the masters in the different arts varied 
from ten to six lire, according to their abilities or reputa- 
tion. In addition to this sum received from voluntary 
contributions, large revenues were derived from legacies, 
as well as from the tribute exacted by authority of the 
state from the towns and feudal proprietors subject to the 
dominion of Orvieto. 

The genius and comprehensive ability of Maitani had 



OKVIETO. 129 

been displayed, not only in the original plan of the builds 
ing and in a general oversight of its construction, but also 
in his practical -acquaintance with the processes of the 
various subsidiary arts, and in the superintendence and 
combination of the labors of the parties of workmen scat- 
tered over the country. The Cathedral was moulded in 
all its portions by his hands, and upon him, in great meas- 
ure, its steady progress had depended. In the year 1330, 
after forty years devoted to its service, he died. He had 
lived long enough to see his great design complete in all 
its main features, and rivalling in its splendid adornments 
the finest churches of Italy. The Duomo at Florence, — 
Santa Maria de' Fiori, — begun about the same time, and 
on a scale of superior grandeur, befitting the greater size, 
the wider power, and the more abundant wealth of the 
city of which it is still the chief ornament, had not ad- 
vanced so rapidly, had not been the object of so fond and 
liberal a regard, as the mountain Cathedral of Orvieto. 
Rare fortune for an artist, to embody his life and imagi- 
nation in one work, and to live to see his w r ork accom- 
plished ! 

The history of the church loses interest after Mai- 
tani's death. It relates thereafter not so much to the 
larger processes and methods of construction as to the 
details of ornamentation, — to the mosaics, the paint- 
ings in chapels, the elaborate wood-inlaying of the choir 
stalls, the making of the costly reliquary, — all of which 
show the zeal of the Orvietans in the decoration of the 
building, and illustrate the history of the minor arts, but 
fail in exhibiting any of the grander features of social 

9 



130 TEAYEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

life and religious emotions. The race of men to which 
Maitani belonged was fast disappearing in Italy, and it 
would have been difficult, had there been need, to find a 
successor able to occupy the place he had filled. After 
the death of Arnolfo, the Duomo of Florence was left 
to stand incomplete for nearly a century, and was then 
partially finished, on a plan inferior to, and discordant 
with, the original design. The grandest part of the plan 
for the Cathedral of Siena was never carried out. The 
Cathedral of Milan remained unfinished till the present 
century. The Campanile at Florence is one of the few 
great works of architecture in the North of Italy begun 
and finished in the fourteenth century, and Giotto was 
almost the last of the long line of complete artists who 
comprehended architecture, sculpture, and painting in the 
full circle of their acquirements. Before the end of that 
century Gothic architecture was lost to Italy, not more 
through the inability of her artists than through the 
change in the spirit and the decline in the temper of 
her people, of which this inability was one of the 
marked consequences and indications. 

Of all the work that had been accomplished on the 
Duomo during the lifetime of Maitani, the most impor- 
tant in the history of Art, and the most intrinsically pre- 
cious, were the sculptures which still hold their place 
upon the four piers at the sides of the doors of entrance. 
Neither the exact date at which they were carved, nor 
the names of the artists who executed them, are known 
with certainty. Vasari, in his life of Niccola Pisano, 
attributes them to this master; but Niccola died before 



OKVIETO. 131 

the Cathedral of Orvieto was begun, and these works 
show a consummate power and skill, such as even this 
great artist rarely exhibited. It is a circumstance that 
marks the temper of the men who created these and 
most other of the best works of Art down to this period, 
that they left no record of their names upon the marble 
which they carved or the walls which they painted. In 
his life^pf Arnolfo di Lapo, Yasari complains of many 
works, that he was not able to find out in what century 
they were executed, so that, as he says, " I cannot but 
wonder at the stupidity and the little desire for glory of 
the men of those times." This wonder was natural at a 
period when artists cared more for distinction than for 
excellence. It was, however, neither stupidity nor care- 
lessness of fame that had led the earlier masters to the 
neglect of the preservation of their names ; but their 
chief desire was to produce works that should deserve to 
last in the service of religion, and not as memorials of 
themselves. All Art was sanctified by its religious char- 
acter. As the priest at the altar forgot himself in the 
presence and service of the Almighty, so they who paint- 
ed the sacred picture or carvecL the altar-steps thought 
little of human praise and acceptance in the performance 
of their works. They shared in the exalted religious 
feeling of the period. Glory to God, fear of His judg- 
ments, joy in the works of His hand, filled their hearts 
and warmed their imaginations. In the heated air of 
devout enthusiasm, personal ambitions and vain exulta- 
tions were scorched and withered up. But as the spirit- 
ual conditions that produced such results passed away, 



132 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

as the religious motives of Art grew weak, the desire of 
fame took the place of purer desires, and artists inscribed 
their names even upon works professedly sacred, for the 
direction of admirers and the information of posterity. 

These Orvietan sculptures, although not the work of 
Niccola Pisano, proceeded from the school which he 
founded, and which was carried forward by his son, Gio- 
vanni. Their style connects them with other works 
known to be from the hand of Giovanni or his immediate 
disciples ; and though no direct evidence remains of his 
being at Orvieto, yet, as he labored long both at Perugia 
and at Siena, there is every likelihood that he, as the 
most famous sculptor of the times, would have been 
called on to take charge of the most important work in 
marble of the century. It may well be that other sculp- 
tors had part in it, and some apparent differences in style 
are to be traced under a general similarity in the execu- 
tion. But 

" Qual di pennel fu maestro e di stile, 
Chi ritraesse 1' ombre e i tratti ch' ivi 
Mirar farieno un ingegno sottile," 

will, perhaps, never be certainly known. 

In poetical conception, in imaginative mingling of sym- 
bolism and realism, in the combination of mystic fulness 
of allegory and suggestion with a simple, straightforward, 
and natural development of the leading ideas, in play of 
fancy, in truth and tenderness of feeling, and in the ex- 
hibition of a sincere and ardent faith, these sculptures 
take rank among the noblest works of mediaeval genius. 



ORVIETO. 133 

Nor is it only in their intrinsic qualities that they de- 
serve admiration. The imagination and feeling manifest 
in the works of the early masters are often superior to 
their powers of execution. They succeed in expressing 
themselves only in part and imperfectly, owing to the 
want of technical skill, and the failure of the hand to 
give due form to the conceptions of the brain. The un- 
successful result of efforts to break loose -from inherited 
and conventional methods of representation, the baffled 
attempts to express the new thoughts and feelings which 
were stirring in the minds and hearts of men, often give 
a curious pathos to the works of the first centuries of the 
Sevival. Giotto himself rarely drew with entire correct- 
ness, so far as mere physical rendering was concerned. 
The progress of the hand was far slower than that of the 
spirit. Knowledge is of later birth than feeling. But 
in these bas-reliefs, which Vasari qualifies as " respec- 
table works for the time," there is less imperfection of 
rendering, less deficiency in knowledge of anatomy, of the 
figure in motion, and of perspective, than in most other 
contemporary works. They show not only study of the 
ancient models, from which the Pisans had learned much 
in their own city, but also careful study from life, of the 
human figure, and of draperies. They show, indeed, that 
there was still much to learn, but, in spite of many de- 
fects, the forms have animation, and the faces have natural 
expression. Modern sculpture can show nothing which, 
in variety of imagination and liveliness of rendering, ex- 
cels these works executed five centuries and a half ago. 

On the four piers, each of which is about twenty-five 



134 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

feet high by sixteen feet in width, the spiritual history 
of the human race, according to the Scriptural view, is 
sculptured in direct or typical representations. The first 
is occupied with bas-reliefs which set forth the Creation 
and the Fall of Man, and the two great consequences of 
the fall, Sin and Labor. On the next pier are sculp- 
tured with great fulness and variety, and not always with 
plain meaning, some of the prophetic visions and historic 
events in which the Future Redemption of the world was 
seen or prefigured by the eye of faith, or which awakened 
longings for the coming of the Messiah. On the third is 
represented the Advent, the Life and Death of the Sa- 
viour, at once the reconciling of God and man and the 
fulfilment of prophecy. And on the fourth is the com- 
pletion of the things of the spirit, in the Resurrection, 
the Last Judgment, Heaven and Hell.* 

Thus were the great facts of his religious creed set 
before the eyes of him who approached the church, about 
to pass over its threshold from the outer world. Every 
eye could read the story on the wall ; and though few 
might comprehend the full extent of its meaning, and 
few enter into sympathy with the imagination of the art- 
ist, yet the inspiration of faith had given such power to 
the work, that no one could behold it without receiving 
some measure of its spirit, and being influenced by its 
devout and serious teachings. 

* Engravings of the sculptures on these piers are to be found in 
Die Basreliefs an der Vorderseite des Doms zu Orvieto. . . . Mil erlau- 
terndem Texte von Emil. Braun. Herausgegeben von Ludwig Gku- 
ner. Leipzig. 1858. A volume of great beauty and interest. 



ORVIETO. 135 

The series of bas-reliefs on the first pier begins at the 
lower corner on the left hand, with a representation of the 
work of the fifth day of Creation. The three persons 
of the Trinity take part in the act ; but the Father is 
represented only by a hand in the act of blessing, from 
which rays proceed, appearing in the heavens amid the 
sun, moon, and stars. The Holy Spirit hovers as a dove 
above the head of the Saviour, who, as the chief agent 
of the creation,* stands with his right hand outstretched 
toward a stream of water filled with fishes, and toward a 
fiock of birds gathered on the farther bank of the stream. 
The figure of the Saviour is that of a young man, his 
bearded face has a Grecian type of beauty, and the 
drapery of his garment exhibits in its breadth and dig- 
nity the influence of classical models. The fowl that may 
fly above the earth are so treated as to show the artist's 
careful fidelity to Nature. There are at least sixteen 
birds in the group, massed together, but in most instances 
distinguished by some special characteristic. In front 
stands the eagle, with flat head, curved beak, and sharp 
talon, as if in his very form foretelling the starvation that 
would await him in Paradise, according to the common 
notion of that place, were man not soon to fall. On a 
shrub near by sits a little bird, seemingly a dove, which, 

* The wide-spread idea, that the creation was effected through the 
agency of the Son, was derived from a false interpretation of the 
words, -" All things were made by him," John i. 3, that is, by the 
Logos or Word of God. See Didron's Cliristian Iconography, trans- 
lated by Millington, I. 170-196. Thus, in the Xicene Creed, repeated 
daily in the Mass, occur the words, " Ieswn Christum, filivm Dei uni- 
genitum, . . . . per quern omnia facta sunt.' 11 



136 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

with wings upraised and neck stretched forward, appears 
to exult in its new-created life. It is a figure small, 
but full of delight, carved by a lover of Nature. Be- 
hind the Saviour are two wide-winged and beautiful 
angels, one looking upward, the other watching the 
process of creation. 

The next bas-relief is occupied by the representation 
of the sixth day's work. The third shows the Creation 
of Man. The significance of the words, " The Lord 
God formed man of the dust of the ground," is con- 
veyed by the figure of a man stretched in lifeless listless- 
ness upon the earth. This figure is one of the marvels 
of sculpture. It lies neither dead nor sleeping, but sim- 
ply without animation. Life has not heaved the chest 
nor moved the countenance. Above the form stands the 
Creating Saviour, bending a little forward, as if in con- 
templative interest, his right hand stretched out with 
extended forefinger, as if guiding the obedient dust, and 
shaping it to perfect man. The attendant angels are not 
now side by side, but opposite each other. The one that 
floats at the head of the man is unsurpassed in lightness 
and composure of poise and motion, in sweetness of aspect 
and of attitude. The band of angels in these sculptures 
and in those of the third pier take their place in the 
memory with Fra Angelico's portraits of the heavenly 
host. The serenity, the sweetness, and the intensity of 
their expressions, the piety and various emotion mani- 
fest in their gestures and attitudes, the sweeping curves 
of their balanced white wings, the self-support of their 
floating forms, the simple lines of the drapery that 



ORVIETO. 137 

clothes them, their diversity and their similarity, all 
give to them a place in sculpture exclusively their 
own. 

Take them, for instance, in the next sculptured picture 
of the series, where they hover side by side, watching 
the final work of Creation, beholding the Lord with his 
left hand resting upon the head of man, and with his right 
hand, in the act of blessing, brought close to the face that 
he had formed out of the dust, breathing into its nostrils 
the breath of life. The one with hands folded across 
the bosom seems wrapt in wondering and reverent con- 
templation, — while the other, with one hand pointing to 
earth and one to heaven, seems as if marking the union 
of earth and heaven in the body and the spirit of man. 
Man erect, but not yet alive, life seems to be quivering 
through his limbs in the first throb of consciousness, — 
the eyes are unclosing, the hand starting into motion, the 
legs becoming firm for support. A moment more, and 
man will be a living soul. 

To the imagination that conceived of the presence of 
these spiritual witnesses at the miracle of Creation, the 
reality of the angels of the Lord was a fact as literal as 
the reality of men. With inward vision the artist beheld 
the heavenly messengers, and he carved each successive 
figure as he beheld it passing in the beauty of holiness 
before his purified eyes. 

" A lui venia la creatura bella 

Bianco vestita, e nella faccia quale 
Par tremolando mattutina stella." 

The series of sculptures on the first pier, advancing 



138 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

from the Creation of Man to the Creation of Woman, then 
to the scenes in the Garden, and to the Fall, the Expul- 
sion from Paradise, and the Murder of Abel, ends with 
two tablets which seem intended for typical representa- 
tions of the fulfilment of the doom of labor which had 
been pronounced against man. The labors in which he 
engaged ended in weariness of soul and vexation of spirit. 
Parted from God, he found the earth full of thorns and 
thistles. The present was sorrowful, the future dark, and 
only in his visions, in prophetic foregleams of joy, did he 
behold the promise of a brighter day. 

This spiritual forecasting of a reunion between the 
Almighty and the children of men occupies the second 
pier in a long series of involved sculptures. The sep- 
arate compositions exhibit different passages of the ob- 
scure prophetic and poetic history of the children of 
Israel, — displaying the pride, the desolation, the sorrows, 
and the hopes of the race. 

Along the middle of the pier, in an ascending line 
of ovals, formed by an intricate and fanciful arabesque 
which divides the carved scenes one from another, are 
seen six of the kings of the house of David, beginning 
with David himself, holding his harp. In the seventh 
oval appears Mary, the mother of Jesus ; and in the 
eighth and last, crowning and fulfilling all, sits the Mes- 
siah himselff his right hand raised to bless, his left holding 
the Book of the New Covenant. 

Two lines of prophets cross the pier horizontally at its 
base. One among them is distinguished from his com- 
panions by a garland of leaves upon his head. Possibly, 



ORVIETO. 139 

under this figure thus distinguished, the artist intended to 
represent Virgil, who, throughout the Middle Ages, bore 
a semi-prophetic character, and was supposed to have 
foretold the coming of Christ. A female figure upon 
the opposite side suggests also an intention on the part 
of the sculptor to represent one of the Sibyls, who, 
in popular credence, no less than the prophets, — " Teste 
David cum Sibylla" — had foretold the birth of the 
Redeemer. 

Among the scenes represented on either side of the 
line of kings, are the Anointing of David, the Vision of 
Ezekiel, the Birth of Immanuel, (Isaiah vii. 14,) the 
Mourning of Jerusalem, and the Weighing of Souls or of 
the actions of men (1 Samuel ii. 3). The final scene is 
that of the Crucifixion, not displayed as a literal event, 
but as foreshadowed in dim words and obscure hints in 
the ancient prophecies. In the death of Him who taketh 
away the sins of the world the cycle of prophecy was 
closed. But above the Crucifixion sits the Virgin, and 
above her appears her Son in glory. On one side an 
angel, flying toward Mary, seems to speak the sweet 
words of the Annunciation, while on the other a prophet, 
looking up to the Saviour, displays his open roll of 
prophecy, the meaning of which is now clear, and the 
service of which is ended. 

On either side of the main compositions on this pier, 
almost from bottom to top, is a line of prophets and aged 
men engaged in instructing the successive generations of 
mankind, who are represented in half-figures. In these 
groups it was, perhaps, the intention of the sculptor to 



140 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

exhibit those men, and the followers of them, who " all 
died in faith, not having received the promises, but hav- 
ing seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and 
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers 
and pilgrims on the earth." 

Thus this pillar of prophecy leads on to the pillar of 
fulfilment, which stands on the opposite side of the cen- 
tral door. Again, a tree of arabesque rises up through 
it, forming in graceful curves a series of seven central 
ovals inclosing figures of prophets, and on either side a 
corresponding series of eight circles, in which scenes from 
the life of the Saviour are sculptured, and finishing at 
the edges of the pier with smaller circles, which inclose 
half-figures of angels. The arrangement separates scene 
from scene, but leads the eye easily from one to another. 
The passages of the gospel narrative which are illus- 
trated form a series such as was often developed by the 
mediaeval artists, with such variations as special circum- 
stances or individual feeling might induce. First is the 
Annunciation, — " the angel who came to announce the 
peace wept for for many years " kneeling before Mary, 
who stands with half-troubled look hearing the words of 
his message. The angel in half-figure in the outer circle, 
with hands crossed upon the breast, listens with apparent 
tranquillity of joy to the words from the lips of Gabriel. 
The Annunciation is followed by the Salutation, — in 
which the figures are of extraordinary excellence, espe- 
cially that of an old woman who seems to be the attend- 
ant of Mary, and whose air and expression are copied 
from nature, from a model such as the streets of Orvieto 



OEVIETO. 141 

might easily afford. The next scene represents the Birth 
of Christ. Mary is lying upon a couch ; her figure and 
the drapery have a freedom and beauty which recall 
Grecian sculptures ; while the fact that the Saviour is 
represented as lying in a sarcophagus, which serves as a 
cradle, shows the direct influence of the remains of an- 
cient Art. But though this sculpture exhibits the readi- 
ness of the Pisan artist to take lessons from the w r ork of 
former masters, it gives evidence of the entrance of new 
ideas w T ithin the range of Art, and of the existence of 
conceptions unknown to the ancient schools. In the atti- 
tude of the Virgin, as she raises herself, leaning on her 
right arm, to lift the veil that hung over the cradle of her 
divine Son, and to look with earnest gaze into his face, 
there is a tenderness of expression and a simple render- 
ing of natural maternal feeling which betoken some of 
the peculiar characteristics of Christian as distinguished 
from classic Art. The attendant angel, with face up- 
turned and hands clasped and raised toward heaven as 
in prayer, seems to partake in the mingled emotions of 
the scene. 

Passing over the intermediate bas-reliefs, we come, 
near the close of the history, to a naive and forcible com- 
position representing the Betrayal in the Garden. Judas, 
with his hand resting upon the arm of Jesus, draws the 
Saviour toward him to receive the treacherous kiss. The 
multitude, with swords and staves, appear behind. One 
of the attendants raises his hand to strike the unresisting 
Jesus. In the corner, Peter has thrown down the ser- 
vant of the high-priest with his face toward the ground, 



142 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

and, with an amusing appearance of deliberate malice, is 
engaged in cutting off his ear. 

The Scourging follows the Betrayal. The angel of 
this sculpture no longer appears watching the scene be- 
fore him, but, with head bowed, and hands crossed, and 
fingers clenched, expresses in his attitude a shrinking 
horror at the sight. After the Scourging comes the 
Crucifixion. It is represented in a manner at once con- 
ventional and painful, but again the angel exhibits the 
imagination of the artist, in the force and pathos of his 
passionate attitude, in his hands pressed closely upon his 
eyes. But in the representation that follows, of the Three 
Marys at the Sepulchre, where the three women are 
seen listening with imperfect comprehension to the angel, 
who, sitting upon the tomb, and pointing upwards, says 
to them, " He is not here, for he is risen," the angel at 
the side, with full understanding of the marvellous words, 
and of the joy of the resurrection, lifts face and hands 
to heaven in exulting thanksgiving. In the last scene, 
Mary Magdalene is casting herself at the feet of him 
whom she had supposed to be the gardener. The dra- 
matic conception is striking, but the execution is feeble 
and defective. 

It was thus that the artist told the life of the Lord. 
The pictures and sculptures of the Church were the 
Bibles of the poor ; they served to give shape to vague 
ideas, to confirm faith by giving reality to its objects, 
to quicken devotion by awakening slumbering affections 
and imaginations. The artist became a preachef of 
the Word. He might behold in his own day the influ- 



ORVIETO. 143 

ence of his works. He saw them studied, not by the cold 
and critical eye of connoisseurship, but by the tender heart 
of faith ; their meaning was spelt out by rustics and told 
to the little children. He saw them serve, not as the mere 
ornament of, but as a spiritual introduction to the House 
of God. Inspired by faith in the truths of his religion, by 
a sense of the power of his art, by a recognition of his 
opportunities as a teacher, — what wonder, if his heart 
burned within him, and his hand found means to answer 
to the desire of his heart to make his work worthy, in 
spirit and in execution, of the place it was to hold, of the 
affections it was to promote ? 

But the chief strength of the maker of these sculp- 
tures, and the highest exercise of his imagination, were 
reserved for the bas-reliefs of the fourth and last pier. 
It was here that he showed the consummation in eternity 
of the lives of men upon earth, exhibiting the judgment 
and the life to come in typical representations, which 
were regarded by the common people as depicting abso- 
lute realities. The very forms and manner of the resur- 
rection and the future world being conceived of with 
material distinctness, and with what was supposed to be 
even more than a mere general exactness, the work 
of the artist was not so much to embody his individual 
imaginations in independent and original designs, as to 
give to the common and accepted types such elevation, 
such power and beauty, as lay within the compass of his 
genius to conceive and to exhibit. The same subjects 
appeared on cathedral walls all over Europe, under the 
same general forms, though with every variety of acces- 



144 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

sory and difference of detail. But among all the repre- 
sentations of them, there are few that equal those of this 
pier in vividness of conception, in poetic spirit, in skill 
of composition. 

From the middle of the foot of the pier springs a 
grape-vine, which, rich in tendrils, clustering leaves, and 
abundant bunches of fruit, — rich, too, in the suggestions 
of ancient symbolism, — divides the sculptured surface 
with its main trunk and branches into ten compartments. 
At the lower left-hand side is the Eesurrection. Men 
and women are seen rising hastily from their graves, 
with energetic action pushing off the heavy covers of the 
sarcophagi in which they had lain, and with various 
aspects hearing the long-awaited and awful summons. 
The composition is full of life. The actions and the 
forms of the souls rising for judgment display a power 
of invention, a knowledge of anatomy, and a variety of 
expression, surpassing those shown in any of the pre- 
vious works of the facade, and, so far as I am aware, 
unequalled by any other work of Italian sculpture of the 
period. Michel Angelo himself did not design more 
vigorous muscular action or more eager effort than are 
here shown. The figures of the dead coming from their 
graves in his Last Judgment exhibit no more nature, 
though much more that is painful and revolting, than 
those in this work of the earlier and simpler master. 
The joy of those whose names are written in the Book 
of Life appears on the uplifted faces of some, who, with 
clasped hands, look toward heaven, where Christ is 
seated. The horror of condemnation is already on the 



ORVIETO. 145 

faces of others. A monk, who is trying to climb up by 
the grape-vine, the vine of the Lord, to seize the fruit to 
which he is not entitled, has upon his face a look of dis- 
appointment and alarm at once pathetic and amusing, 
from the simplicity with which it is rendered, and the 
satire which it implies. Immediately above this scene 
of the Resurrection is a group of the redeemed, who, 
with faces full of peace, are led heavenward by angels, 
whose attitudes overrun with tenderness. One has his 
hand upon the shoulder of a youth, pressing him forward ; 
another clasps the figure of a worthy priest ; another, with 
his hand supporting the head of a young man, points up- 
ward, as if directing his eyes to the Source of life. In its 
suggestions of beauty and love, in the sweetness of its 
pervading sentiment, this bas-relief is one of the finest of 
the facade. It is the work of a man who entered through 
sympathy into the delight of the blessed, and the happiness 
of the ministering angels whom he ventured to depict. 

Corresponding with this, on the other side is a com- 
position of equal power, but power of another kind, in 
which the damned souls are seen drawn down to the 
mouth of hell. An angel, driving them in, stands under 
the vine ; while horrible demons receive them at the other 
side, one of whom is dragging them in by cords fastened 
around their necks. A serpent is winding along the 
ground near the angel's foot. The attitudes and expres- 
sions of despair are rendered with marvellous force, and 
with little offensive exaggeration. One figure stands in 
the memory as the very statue of Dismay ; bent over, 
with hands resting against his knees, a lock of his long 

10 



146 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

curling hair is seized by a grisly demon, who lashes his 
broad bowed back with a writhing snake. Beneath, op- 
posite the sculpture of the Resurrection, is Hell itself, 
— a horrid confusion of fierce, bat-winged, long-clawed 
devils, of biting and venomous serpents, of flames, of tor- 
mented souls. 

It is by no means unlikely that the descriptions of 
Dante may have been in the mind of the Orvietan artist, 
so great is the similarity in some points of his work to 
passages of the Inferno, The coincidences between the 
work of the poet and that of the sculptor are interesting, 
if not as proofs of the direct and early influence of the 
Divina Commedia, yet as illustrations of the similarity 
of contemporary conceptions, derived more or less re- 
motely from the popular beliefs. Thus, Dante gives to 
Lucifer wings, not of birds, but of bats, (Inferno, xxxiv. 
49,) and his description of the serpents of the seventh 
bolgia serves for a description of those of this sculptured 
Hell. " And I saw there a terrible throng of serpents, 
and of such fearful look that the remembrance still 

freezes my blood In this cruel and most dismal 

swarm were running people naked and terrified, with- 
out hope of escape or concealment." (Inferno, xxiv. 
82-93.) Other resemblances are apparent in the figure 
of Lucifer, and in the tortures of the wicked. Through- 
out this sculpture there is a masterly power of execution, 
which perhaps raises it in technical merit above any of 
the other bas-reliefs. The composition is crowded, but 
not confused ; the actions of the separate figures are of 
astonishing variety and intensity of expression. There 



ORVIETO. 147 

is one figure in which the depth of misery from physical 
and moral torture is rendered with a power unequalled 
in sculpture. One of the dragons that coil round Luci- 
fer has seized the arm of this wretched man in his teeth, 
and is dragging it from its socket. The head of the sin- 
ner falls forward fainting, his whole body droops, his 
knees bend, his other arm hangs stiffly down, and yet in 
this act of swooning there is no suggestion that the sen- 
sibility to torment becomes less, or that the swoon reaches 
farther than the muscles. As a mere study of human 
action, this figure is wonderful, for the time at which it 
was produced; as a piece of imaginative realism, it is 
still more remarkable. 

It may seem that such representations as these are 
simply shocking in their display of barbarous horrors ; 
but it is to be considered that they are triumphs of Art in 
respect to the end to which they were directed, — that 
end being to affect the imaginations of those who de- 
pended on the means of salvation held out to them by 
the Church, by awakening in them a positive alarm in 
regard to their future condition. To render the torments 
of hell real to the fancies of men has been one of the 
most constant efforts of the Roman Church, as well as of 
other churches and other sects of diverse origin and 
name. The sermons of Jonathan Edwards are not less 
horrible in their revolting pictures of the material suffer- 
ings of the damned, and show no more spiritual concep- 
tions of the future life, than the common Romanist repre- 
sentations of hell. Both belong to a perverted system of 
heathenism raised upon a professedly Christian founda 
tion. 



148 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

The next two sculptures, forming a band across the 
pier, divided only by the stem of the ascending vine, are 
filled with the figures of the blessed, attended by their 
guardian angels. Above, forming the next band, appear 
on one side confessors, bishops, priests, and other ser- 
vants of God, and on the other the virgins who sealed 
with their blood the bond which bound them to the Lord. 
The central figure of the first group is that of a Pope, 
which may be intended for a likeness of Nicholas IV., 
who laid the corner-stone of the Cathedral ; he stands 
between St. Francis and St. Dominick. In the back- 
ground is seen the figure of a master-builder, with an 
architect's square upon his shoulder and a workman's 
cap on his head. It is pleasant to believe that in this 
figure we see Lorenzo Maitani, the great architect of the 
Duomo. 

Still again, above the churchmen and the virgins, sit, in 
opposite ranks, the prophets and the apostles, on either 
side of the Lord, who appears seated within an aureole 
held up by the angels around the throne. Just without 
the aureole stands Mary, and opposite to her John the 
Baptist. Higher up are the instruments of the passion, 
and from the clouds on each side two angels are seen to 
issue, blowing the trumpets of judgment. The figure of 
the Saviour, different in this respect from later and more 
famous representations, has nothing terrible or vindictive 
in look or action. His face is calm and mild ; his hands 
are so held as to display the wounds upon them, and the 
aureole within which he sits is formed out of the bars of 
the cross. 



ORVIETO. 149 

Thus were heaven and hell displayed, with their sepa- 
rate companies of spirits, — and thus was the final com- 
position completed, opening to sight that future world, to 
prepare for which was the great duty of life. The ex- 
pectation of the speedy second coming of the Saviour 
was still a common one, and these representations ap- 
pealed with peculiar force to men who fancied, that, even 
in their generation, they might see " the angel fly in 
the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to 
preach unto them that dwell on the earth, saying with a 
loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the 
hour of His judgment is come, and worship Him that 
made heaven and earth." * 

Although the faith of men has in the progress of years 
grown less ardent, and the conceptions on which that 
faith is based have in great part changed, and though 
these sculptures consequently have lost something of 
their original power in the service of religion, yet in 
looking at them now, worn by the beatings of storms, 
yellowed by sun and rain, here and there scratched and 
broken by carelessness or wantonness, but even thus 
giving evidence of long existence, — in so seeing them, 
one cannot but feel that the centuries, while taking from 
them one source of effect upon the imagination, have 
given them another in its place. 

For more than five hundred years no day has passed 

that many eyes have not rested upon them, and from 

their sight gained some impression of the significance of 

the scenes which they represent, some refreshment of 

* Revelation xiv. 6, 7. 



150 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

moral energies, some quickening of religious emotions, 
some awakening of spiritual hopes and aspirations. Pil- 
grims on their way to Rome and the shrines of the Apos- 
tles have rested under the shelter of the sunny Cathedral 
front, and have here renewed their vows in presence of 
the figure of their Lord. Artists have come to study 
from these marbles,* and have sought in vain from them 
the secret of their inspiration. Popes have bowed before 
them. Boys have flung willing stones against the sculp- 
tured and unmindful devil. The common worshippers, 
in all the different moods of life in which they have 
sought the church, have seen a story wrought here as if 
in counterpart to their own inmost experiences, as if in 
answer to their longings for sight of the invisible. Gen- 
eration after generation has passed along between the 
sculptured piers through the wide doors, first for baptism 
into the Church, then for its successive holy sacraments, 
till at length the priest in sacred vestments has at the 
appointed time gone out from between the same sculp- 
tures to carry to the dying sons of men the last gifts 
which the Church can bestow upon her children. Here 

* Vasari relates, in his Life of Bmnelleschi, that one morning, soon 
after His return from Rome, in the year 1407, that great architect fell 
into talk with the sculptor Donatello, and other artists, in the square 
of Santa Maria del Fiore, about the ancient works of sculpture, and 
that Donatello said, " that, when he returned from Rome, he went by 
the way of Orvieto, in order to see the celebrated marble fagade of 
the Duomo, sculptured by the hands of divers masters, and esteemed 
a notable thing in those days." In 1423, Donatello, then the chief 
sculptor of his time, was employed to make a figure in bronze gilt of 
St. John the Baptist, to place upon the font in the Cathedral. 



ORVIETO. . 151 

were birth and baptism, sin and sorrow, repentance and 
consolation, joy and grief, death and resurrection, all dis- 
played, prefiguring the events that each successive gen- 
eration should know as its own. And thus, year after 
year, as the mellowing marble has gained a deeper tint 
of age, has it also gained a fuller tone of meaning, a 
richer depth of association. 

While these works were accomplishing, labor upon 
other portions of the Cathedral was not interrupted; 
and after the sculptures were finished, their excellence 
acted as an incitement to make the remaining works of 
decoration worthy of being associated with them. Skil- 
ful workmen and fine materials were sought, as before, 
from all the neighboring districts. The records of the 
works continue full of information in regard to the pro- 
cesses, the materials, the cost of the different branches 
of Art. Great pains were taken by the superintendents 
of the building that nothing should be done in a slovenly 
or imperfect manner. At one time they sought for " a 
good and honorable picture for the great altar ; and as 
none could be found, it was determined to have one 
painted as beautiful as possible." At another, they 
sought for " a good head master, expert, and of good 
life, diligent and steady, who should carry on the works 
in the best manner." Toward the end of the century, it 
was determined to obtain an organ that should be suited 
to the grandeur of the Cathedral ; and to this end a de- 
cree was passed that " an organ greater than any other 
in the world should be made," — fiat organum majus de 
toto mimdo. In 1354 there is a record of marble 



152 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

brought from Rome, from the ruins of the temple of Jupi- 
ter,- — showing that the Roman quarries were still worked 
to advantage by these new builders. Already a reli- 
quary of the most elaborate workmanship had been made 
to contain the sacred corporate. It is of pure silver, 
ornamented with rich and brilliant enamels, and weigh- 
ing no less than four hundred pounds. But the beauty 
of its execution surpasses the costliness of its material. 
Representing on one side the facade of the Cathedral, its 
architectural structure is adorned with statues of saints 
and angels, and with enamelled pictures of sacred sub- 
jects, and illustrations of the history of the precious 
relic within it. Fortunate is the position of Orvieto, 
which has saved such a treasure from being seized and 
melted down ! 

Amid all the vicissitudes of sad seasons, amid all the 
excitements and troubles of Italy, the building was car- 
ried forward with more or less steadiness, but with little 
diminution of the interest of the citizens in its progress. 
The Popes continued to favor it, and its own beauty stim- 
ulated contributions for its increase. One generation 
had seen the Duomo begun ; another had watched its 
rapid advance, and taken delight in the splendor of its 
construction; a third had continued to lavish labor and 
treasure in its adornment ; and at the beginning of the 
fifteenth century, a fourth was taking part in a work 
which was no less the object of its pride than of its devo- 
tion.* The ablest artists were still sent for ; and through 

* Among the entries in the records near the beginning of this cen- 
tury is one which contains an exhibition of simple and natural feel- 



ORVIETO. 153 

the course of this century the names of many of the 
most famous of their time are enrolled on the Orvietan 
lists. 

The most interesting and important works in the Ca- 
thedral during this period were the paintings executed 
by Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli in the chapel of 
the Virgin. It was in the spring of 1447 that the first 
of these great artists, being in Rome, and desirous, per- 
haps, to escape from the unhealthy air of the city during 
the summer, sent to the Board of Works an offer of his 
services for three months. The offer was gladly ac- 
cepted, and liberal terms were made, so that, on the 14th 
of June, Fra Angelico signed the contract at Orvieto, 
whither he had come, accompanied by his favorite pupil, 
Benozzo Gozzoli, and by two apprentices.* It was de- 

ing. In the year 1411, one Agostino Catalini represents to the Board 
of Works that he has been from a child employed on the building, 
' "et ibidem didicerit a pucritia sua, 1 ' and now desires to give proof 
of his ability in sculpture, " ad sculpendum lapides cujuscumque gen- 
eris " ; whereupon he was engaged as sculptor for a year, at the rate 
of sixteen lire a month. 

* There is an amusing quaintness in some of the terms of this con- 
tract. " In Dei noe. Amen. Congregatis [Conservatoribus] . . . . et 
habitis inter eos et pictorem multis colloquiis super omnibus et sin- 
gulis .... unanimiter .... Camerarius .... conduxit ad pingendam 
capellam novam .... religiosum virum frem Johem Petri Magrum 
pictorem Ord. Predicatorum Observantie Sci Dominici ibid, presentem 
et acceptantem et picturas totius dicte capelle locavit d. Mag. fratri 
Johi cum pactis quod d. frater Johes .... serviret ad picturas pred. 
cum persona sua. Item cum persona Benotii Cesi de Florentia. Item 
cum persona Joins Antonii de Florentia. Item cum persona Jacobi 
de Poli bene et diligenter et cum ea qua decet solertia et solecitu- 
dine. 



154 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

termined that he should paint a Last Judgment ; and in 
honor of his recognized merit, the title of Maestro del 
Maestri was conferred upon him. The work was soon 
begun ; and in the course of the summer the painter 
had finished the figure of the Saviour, and a noble band 
of prophets. He worked with zeal, and his figures were 
in truth " beautiful and praiseworthy," — for they possess 
those characteristics which give to the paintings of this 
devout master a place by themselves among the most 
precious productions of Art. The figure of Christ, with 
his right hand raised, in the act, as it were, of denouncing 
a revengeful judgment upon the world, is, indeed, one 
such as rarely proceeded from the mild pencil of Angel- 
ico. The force of expression in some degree makes up 
for the painful nature of the conception ; and so similar 
is it in design to the figure of Christ in Michel Angelo's 
more famous picture, that the assertion has often been 
made that it is the original from which Michel Angelo 
drew. In September, Fra Angelico returned to Rome, 
and, from some unexplained cause, never again, during 
the seven remaining years of his life, visited Orvieto. 
At the time of his death, the work which he had be- 
gun there was still unfinished. 

"Item quod faciet et curabit quod d. figure dd. picturar. erunt 
pulchre et laudabiles. 

" Item quod omnia faciet .... sine fraude, dolo, ad commendatio- 
nem cujuslibet boni Mag. pictoris. 

" Item pro eorum expensis ultra salaria panem et vinum quantum 
sumciet eis." 



ORVIETO. 155 

Years passed, and no one was found worthy to com- 
plete the work, until, in 1498, Luca Signorelli, then 
"famosissimus pictor in tota Italia" was engaged to go 
on with the paintings in the chapel.* Signorelli at once 
began, and labored steadily for four years, till the whole 
chapel was finished, and till he had accomplished a work 
which secured his fame for all time, and which was a 
source from which both Michel Angelo and Raffaelle drew 
instruction and inspiration. The walls of the chapel are, 
in the greater part of their surface, covered with a series 
of subjects that, in connection with the previous work of 
Fra Angelico, form a continuous painted drama of the 
end of this world and the beginning of the world to 
come. First is seen the preaching of Antichrist, tempt- 
ing the people w 7 ith gold and jewels and the promise of 
power ; many groups in various attitudes and expressions 
of conflicting passions show the confusion of the times. 
The followers of Christ are persecuted. Antichrist is 
beheld borne on high by demons, as if to give to his fol- 
lowers belief in his ascent to heaven ; but the Archangel 
Michael descends with drawn sword against him, and 
casts him overpowered into hell. As witnesses of the 
fall of the deceiver of men, Luca has introduced the por- 
traits of himself and his beatified predecessor. Then 
comes the Resurrection, a work displaying the most fer- 

* The entries in the records concerning this agreement with Signo- 
relli are long and interesting, and written in most amusingly bad 
Latin; for instance: " Spectabilis yir Jo. Lud. Benincasa surgen3 
pedibus .... consulendo dixit qd. mittatur iterum pro d. Mag. Luca, 
et cum eo habeatur conventio . . . . et fiat eidem unum instrument 
turn prout est instrumentum Magii Petri Perusini." 



156 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

tile imagination, and most thorough knowledge of anat- 
omy and of expression. The awakening of the dead at 
the sound of the trumpets of judgment is rendered with 
such fulness of detail, such power of composition, such 
strength of feeling, as to surpass any other similar repre- 
sentation by later or earlier painters. The same praise 
belongs to the scenes of Hell and of Heaven, with which 
the grand representation closes. On the one hand are 
those who " drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which 
is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indig- 
nation, and who are tormented with fire." On the other 
are " they who kept the commandments of God and 
the faith of Jesus." In the contrast between these two 
scenes, — between the horrible demons, the tormented 
spirits, and the utter frightfulness of the one, with the 
blessed angels, the spirits in peace, and the complete 
beauty of the other, — Luca exhibited his highest power, 
and showed himself one of the most imaginative and 
noble artists that have ever lived. One group of the pic- 
ture of Hell deserves special notice, from the tradition 
which is connected with it. It represents a powerful 
demon flying through the air, dragging a beautiful woman 
to the tortures of the pit. It is said that the figure of the 
woman was the portrait of one who had given herself 
al bel tempo while Luca was painting at Orvieto, and 
who, having through curiosity come to see the pictures 
in the chapel, recognized herself in the figure on the 
wall. Struck with confusion and dismay, she left the 
chapel contrite and repentant, and thenceforth led a 
pure and holy life. The angels, the archangels, and the 



OEVIETO. 157 

seraphim of heaven have a beauty and grace which 
render them the worthy companions of Fra Angelico's 
heavenly groups, and of the angels of the Pisan sculp- 
tors. In vigor of form, in strength of action, in variety 
of character, they surpass those of the earlier masters, 
nor do they fall short in sweetness of expression and the 
beauty of holiness. Besides these main compositions, 
there is a series of minor subjects, on the lower part of 
the walls, taken from the classic mythology and history, 
chiefly relating to the ancient conceptions and stories of 
a future life ; among them, the Descent of JEneas, the 
Rape of Proserpine, Orpheus and Eurydice, — and con- 
nected with these, a series of the heads of famous poets, 
Virgil, Claudian, Statius, Dante, and others. The task 
would be too long to describe in full the many minor 
scenes and passages which are here represented, and to 
attempt to convey any just idea of the wealth of ara- 
besque and ornament with which the chapel is adorned. 
The work, taken as a whole, is one of the greatest mas- 
terpieces of Art, one of the chief works of painting to 
which Italy has given birth. "While retaining much of 
the simple straightforwardness and the strong impress 
of faith which distinguished the productions of the early 
masters, it exhibits also the refined graces and the 
complicate power of the works of later times. Luca 
Signorelli closed the line which began with Giotto, and 
opened that which reached its height in Michel Angelo 
and Raffaelle. " He roused by this work," says Vasari, 
" the spirit of all those who came after him, and they 
have since found easy the difficulties of this manner. 



158 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Wherefore I do not wonder that the works of Luca were 
always praised in the highest degree by Michel Angelo, 
nor that many things in his divine Last Judgment were 
in a noble way taken by him from the inventions of 
Luca." * 

With the account of these great works the history in 
detail of the Duomo may well be concluded. The six- 
teenth century was one of decline at Orvieto. Its chief 
nobility and its richest citizens were drawn away to 
Kome, or to the courts of neighboring princes ; its reve- 
nues were diminished in the civil wars of Central Italy, 
and the works on its Cathedral languished. Still, how- 
ever, from time to time, some new work of painting or 

* Vasari's biography of this great painter is one of the best of his 
pleasant series of Lives. When a boy, he had seen him in his old 
age, and Luca had kindly encouraged him in his love of drawing. 
" Turning to me, who was standing straight up before him, he said, 
* Learn, my dear little cousin.' And he said much else to me, which 
I will not repeat, for I know that I have come far short of confirming 
the opinion which that good old man had of me." The whole account 
gives a delightful impression of the sweetness and nobility of Luca's 
disposition and the excellence of his long life. 

In 1845, two German artists undertook to restore the frescoes in the 
chapel at Orvieto. They removed some whitewash with which por- 
tions of Luca's work had been concealed, and they retouched and 
repainted other portions. Their work was so highly esteemed by the 
Orvietans that they were made honorary citizens of Orvieto. But 
in this, as in so many instances in Italy, one is forced to repeat the 
words of Vasari, — "In truth, it would be better sometimes to keep 
the things done by excellent men half spoiled, than to have them re- 
touched by those who know less." 

Among the records of the time when Luca was painting at Orvieto 
is one, in 1500, of a payment to him of ninety ducats, " de quibus 
dictus magister vocavit se bene solutum." 



ORVIETO. 159 

of sculpture was added to it, and the older adornments 
of the builling were repaired as they were menaced by 
decay. But the chief interest of its history ended with 
the departure of Signorelli. The later period of the 
Renaissance and of the Reformation could bring to it no 
new glory. The age of such faith as had directed its 
foundation was gone by, the sources of such lavishness 
of wealth as had brought to its construction all that was 
most costly in material and most precious in workman- 
ship were almost exhausted. It was henceforth to be 
rather a monument of the past than a work of present 
times. Yet the labor upon it has never ceased ; and, 
in the spring of 1856, workmen were engaged in re- 
storing one of the mosaics of its fagads. 



ROME. NAPLES. VENICE. 



ROME. NAPLES. VENICE 



Rome, 30th March, 1856. 
" Rara temporum felicitas, ubi sentire quce veils et quce 
sentias dicere licet,'* says Tacitus. It is a felicity rare 
at Rome. To feel and to speak, to think and to act, inde- 
pendently, are privileges denied to Romans. They are 
privileges too dangerous to the Church, to be allowed by 
the ecclesiastical masters of the State. The less feeling 
and the less thought there are at Rome, the better for its 
rulers. The system of the Church cannot coexist with 
freedom in any direction. The claim of infallibility does 
not recognize that of individual opinion. No theories 
of government and of religion can be more diametrically 
in opposition than those prevalent at Rome and in Amer- 
ica. As an American, born into the most unlimited free- 
dom consistent with the existence of society, — trusting 
to the results of the prevalence of general freedom, as 
affording a moral check upon the excesses of individuals, 
— believing in freedom in the fullest extent, as the di- 
vine rule for individual development, — regarding feeling, 
thought, and speech as having a natural privilege of 
liberty, — honoring the right of private judgment in all 



164 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

matters, — it is difficult, even at a distance, to regard the 
system of the Roman Church as being other than a skil- 
ful perversion of the eternal laws of right ; and it is im- 
possible to regard it, after familiar acquaintance with its 
workings at its source, save with a continually deepening 
sense of its direct opposition to the most precious of hu- 
man rights, to the most sacred of human hopes. 

Society, which in a condition of freedom knits its bonds 
continually closer and stronger, becomes disintegrated un- 
der the influence of a government which undertakes the 
control, not only of public, but also of private affairs, and 
which claims to exercise its authority as well over the 
consciences and the thoughts of its subjects as over their 
actions. Such a government can be carried on only by 
secret and corrupt means. The confessional becomes an 
instrument of the State, the secret police an instrument 
of the Church. Suspicion is universal. " We never 
talk openly together, we cannot trust each other," is the 
common confession of Romans. My Italian servant is 
afraid of my Italian friend, and my friend fears lest my 
servant should overhear his talk. " I cannot venture to 
have friends, except those of science," says a Professor 
of the Collegio Romano. The nephew of one of the 
exiles of 1849 brings me a letter for his uncle, to send 
under an inclosure of mine, for he does not think it pru 
dent to let it pass openly through the post-office. Fidati 
era un huon uomo, Nontijidare era megtio, says the Ro- 
man proverb.* 

Divide et impera, is the standing method of Rome. 
* Trust was a good man, Distrust was a better. 



ROME. 165 

The government relies upon the mutual distrust of the 
citizens as a source of strength. But such strength is 
mere weakness in disguise. Every man is taught to dis- 
trust his neighbors, but all men learn to distrust their 
rulers. The government which undertakes to control 
everything, and which seeks to know everything of its 
subjects' affairs, is necessarily baffled, finding the work, 
however skilfully it may be planned, beyond its powers. 
The aphorism of Domitius Afer, " Princeps, qui vult om- 
nia scire, necesse habet multa ignoscere," has a closer 
application to Papal than to Imperial rule. As perse- 
cutors breed heretics, so spies breed liars. In vain is the 
truth sought from those whom the instinct of self-preser- 
vation has taught to deceive. 

In only one view can the Roman ecclesiastical system 
of government be called successful. It has succeeded in 
enlisting on its side the fears of its subjects. 

Rome, 2d April, 1856. 
It is in Pome, and on the Campagna around it, that 
the bitterness of the Italian poets becomes intelligible. 
" AM, serva Italia I di dolore ostello" seems the natural 
language of patriotic emotion. Grief for the desolation 
of the country and the degradation of the people is 
made sharper by the beauty of the land and the excel- 
lent qualities of the popular character, and vents itself 
in the exclamation, "Deh^fossi iu men bella!" Petrarch's 
denunciation of the modern Babylon, Alfieri's tremendous 
invective against Rome, are no mere outbursts of passion, 
but the literal statement of undisguised truth. From the 



166 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

earliest to the latest of the real poets, the same indignant 
sadness embitters their verse, and the strain begun by 
Dante is closed by Leopardi, with the line, — 

"Piangi, ch& ben hai donde, Italia mia!" 



Rome, 8th April, 1856. 

There are few stories of the old Romans in which 
much tenderness of feeling or sentiment of character is 
manifested. Such qualities as these were not valued in 
classic times in proportion to the manlier virtues. Their 
true relation to those virtues was not understood. The 
philosophers excluded them, for the most part, from 
regard, and there was little in heathen modes of life to 
develop the growth of these refined and softer elements 
of character. 

Among all Plutarch's stories, there is, perhaps, none 
more touching, as an exhibition of sentiment, than that 
which he tells of the love of Sertorius for Rome. " In 
the height of his power in Spain, he sent* word to Me- 
tellus and Pompey that he was ready to lay down his 
arms and live a private life, if he were allowed to return 
home ; declaring that he would rather live as the mean- 
est citizen in Rome, than, exiled from it, be supreme 
commander of all other cities together." 



Naples, 14th April, 1856. 
" Shakespeare, Ballo in Quattro Parti" being adver- 
tised for performance this evening at the San Carlo, we 



NAPLES. 167 

went to see it. Policinello had been amusing us in the 
afternoon ; but at the Royal Theatre Policinello was 
distanced. No intentional fun was ever more ludicrous 
than the unintentional comicality of this ballet. The li- 
bretto was for sale at the door, and in itself was abun- 
dantly amusing. The story had been transferred into 
Italian from the French, but it had gathered glory in its 
progress. Its full title was, " Shakespeare, or the Dream 
of a Summer's Night," — and the translators warn their 
readers that it is not a translation of one of Shake- 
speare's plays. The piece opens at the Mermaid Tavern, 
where a room is filled with sailors making merry. Sud- 
denly a person enters, also in a sailor's dress, but under- 
stood to be Shakespeare in disguise. He joins the others 
in their drinking and laughing, " improvvisando alcune 
storielle interessanti" But, indulging himself in some 
gallantries with the pretty bar-maid, he excites the jeal- 
ousy of a character named Tom. This increases the 
good-humor of the poet. He proposes a toast in honor 
of Queen Elizabeth, which is accepted with enthusiasm 
by all except Tom, who refuses to drink it. Shakespeare 
hereupon grows angry, and invites him to what the trans- 
lator calls " una partita di boxes" Tom is thrashed by 
the adventurous dramatist in the best ballet style ; and 
immediately afterward Shakespeare is reminded, by some 
words of the landlord which he happens to overhear, that 
a great supper is to be given in that very tavern, and on 
that very evening, " to the luminary of England, William 
Shakespeare," a fact which that luminary had unaccount- 
ably forgotten. He retires in haste to prepare himself 



168 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

for the banquet ; and, as he goes out, Falstaff, the guar- 
dian of the Royal Park at " Bichemont," enters, to see 
that all is in order for the feast, of which he has the 
charge. While he is repeating his orders, two masked 
ladies are driven by a tremendous storm to take shelter 
in the tavern. These ladies are the Queen and Miss 
Olivia, who had been at the theatre to witness the per- 
formance of " Macbeth," and who, in coming out from it, 
had been separated by the violence of the storm from 
their attendant cavaliers. The guests begin to arrive, 
and the ladies, desirous to avoid encountering them, are 
hidden by Falstaff in a side room. After various adven- 
tures, Shakespeare appears again upon the stage, half 
drunk ; he discovers the ladies, declares that they shall 
not go away, alarms Miss Olivia by drawing his sword, 
and receives a severe rebuke from the Queen. She, 
however, feels profound compassion for that genius which 
is being miserably lost through want of the aid of a 
friendly and protecting hand. She speaks to him of his 
future of glory, warns him of the waste of his talents, 
and exhorts him to make better use of them. Shake- 
speare, probably of opinion that he could not much im- 
prove upon " Macbeth," replies, that, betrayed by love 
and by glory, he has now but one comfort, namely, the 
bottle, which he immediately produces and empties. 
The effect of this draught, in addition to the wine he 
had previously taken, is to cause him to drop suddenly 
asleep. Elizabeth takes the opportunity to escape, hav- 
ing decided, however, to save him from the abyss into 
which he stands ready to plunge. 



NAPLES. 169 

This is the outline of the action in the first part of the 
ballet. Dances are introduced, which add to the effect 
of reality. Shakespeare is a beautiful youth, with long, 
thin legs, and glossy black hair. The remainder of the 
piece is, perhaps, equally amusing. The Queen arran- 
ges a vision in the park for Shakespeare's reformation, 
which is happily accomplished. The poet appears at 
court. " Elizabeth presents to him a rich casket ; he 
opens it, and beholds a crown of laurel. i Oh ! I am not 
worthy of it,' exclaims the great poet, in confusion, bend- 
ing one knee to the ground. i Yes, you are,' replies the 
Queen. She encircles his forehead with the rich crown, 
and orders that the day shall be celebrated on which 
the Queen of England, in the name of the country, 
thanks Shakespeare for his works. Elizabeth takes 
Shakespeare by the hand, and introduces him, to the 
sound of music, into the great dancing-hall." 

This is fame. " Shakespeare. Un Ballo in Quattro 
Parti. Napoli, 1855." 



Naples, 15th April, 1856. 
I bought, to-day, at a bookstall, a volume of some four 
hundred pages, with the following title : " Giesu Bambi- 
no, o sieno Eagionamenti per modo di Meditazioni sopra i 
Dolori ed Allegrezze, ch' ebbe il Cuore di Giesu Cristo 
nell' Utero della Madre ; come altresi sopra le Virtu da 
Lui esercitate mentre stava ivi racchiuso : Composti dal 
Padre D. Antonio De Torres, Preposito Generale della 
Congregazione de' Pii Operarj." The contents of this 



170 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

book appear to be worthy of the title, — and a character- 
istic specimen of the coarse materialism that prevails in 
Neapolitan theology. 



Civita Castellana, 2d June, 1856. 
From the appearance of the children in the streets of 
this ancient and dirty town, it may well be doubted, 
whether, if a second Camillus were to besiege it, any 
traitorous schoolmaster could now be found to deliver the 
boys into his hands. The education of the lower classes 
in the Roman States is professedly superintended by 
ecclesiastics. But, in a country where public spirit is 
stifled, as being equally troublesome to its possessor and 
to the State, — where the government is in the hands of 
a class whose interest it is to keep all other classes in sub- 
jection to themselves, little is effected for the enlighten- 
ment and the improvement of the poor. The Roman 
Church claims to have done much in past times for the 
interests of scholarship ; but her general tendency has 
always been against popular instruction. She has her 
catechisms for religious teaching ; she has her Sunday 
classes ; she gathers the children of the poor together to 
instruct them in their duties, especially in those of faith 
and obedience ; she gives them stories out of Scripture 
history ; and she codifies for them the laws of God into 
the simple direction, — " Do as I bid you, and you will go 
to heaven ; disobey me, and you will go to hell." Such 
has been, and such is, the instruction given by the Church. 
The mass of the people, say those in authority, are not 



CIVITA CASTELLANA. 171 

fit for other teaching than this. What is called educa- 
tion is dangerous. The priest and the schoolmaster are 
rival powers. The alphabet is the first step toward the 
free exercise of thought. Republicans are always read- 
ers. And when a man once begins to read, no one can 
tell how far he will accept what his priest gives to him as 
truth. The Church is logical ; she possesses the knowl- 
edge of truth ; she has souls to save, therefore let her 
prevent these souls from gaining any knowledge but such 
as she may teach them. 

Three or four miles from Civita Castellan a are the 
ruined walls of the city of Falerii Novi, — walls over 
which antiquaries have contended with as much fierce- 
ness as ever was displayed by the old besiegers and be- 
sieged who fought around them. They are all that now 
remain of an Etruscan city. The ride to them is by a 
rough path over broad upland fields, broken here and 
there with deep and beautiful ravines, whose sides, lined 
with vines, elders, and young oaks, are hollowed with 
tombs long since despoiled. Nightingales were singing in 
the trees that overhung a brook which ran through one 
of these ravines, and a cuckoo was calling from one of the 
great park -like oaks that stood in a wide field of grain. 
In the midst of a plain rise the dark red walls of the 
old city, built of squared blocks of tufo, so solid, and so 
well set, that, in great part, they seem as firm to-day as 
when first laid. The line of the northern and eastern 
sides is but little broken ; the upper courses of stone 
have, however, mostly fallen or been thrown down, so 



172 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

that the height of the wall is irregular, sometimes rising 
to more than thirty feet, sometimes to scarcely more than 
ten or twelve. At regular intervals, hardly more than 
a lance-throw apart, stand low, solid, square towers, flank- 
ing the wall along its whole length, and affording a vivid 
illustration of the old mode of attack and defence. Here 
and there the whole structure has been overthrown, and 
the stones lie in a heap covered with clematis, poppies, 
and ivy. The ivy climbs, too, in masses of dark glossy 
green, over the red blocks of the standing wall ; grass 
grows close up to its base ; and above it rise oaks that 
have planted themselves on the banks within. There is 
no house in sight, no sign of habitation, — only this great 
wall standing solitary in the wooded fields, with Soracte 
for its magnificent and unchanging background. 

Many of the old gates are now blocked up. A path 
through a gap in the wall leads to what was once the 
interior of the city, — a field waving with grain, and 
a meadow in which men were raking hay. The only 
building within the circuit is the ruin of an ancient Lom- 
bardic church, that was itself built out of the still earlier 
ruins. Its roof is gone, — the mullions of its round-headed 
windows all gone, — the marble mouldings of its portals 
broken and defaced. Within it a fig-tree is growing 
down from one of its chancel-windows, and a screen of 
ivy half hides the poor remains of a faded fresco. A 
portion of the roof of the apse still remains, and under- 
neath this shelter girls and women were storing the hay 
which they brought in upon their heads from the ad- 
joining meadows. The roofless aisles have been used 



CIVITA CASTELLANA. 173 

for the stabling of cattle, and the fluted columns, once 
those of some heathen temple, serve for the barnyard 
posts. On a block of white marble, at one side of the 
great door, are the words, " Laurentius cum Jacopo Jilio 
suo fecit hoc opus" As they built on the ruins of the 
old city, did the thought ever come to them, that their 
fine work, too, would fall to ruin, — that the priests and 
congregation would desert it, — and that the twitter of 
swallows, the cluck of hens, and the lowing of cows would 
take the place within its walls of the responses of the 
clerks and the chants of the choristers ? A worse ene- 
my than Goth or Vandal has driven away the people 
from their church, — an enemy who is now knocking at 
the very gates of Rome, and seems, year by year, to gain 
new force, — the Malaria. 

Two of the smiling, good-humored girls who were 
bringing in hay came up to me to beg. They were not 
beggars by profession ; but the poor people regard all for- 
eigners as lotteries, in which it is worth while to take a 
ticket, on the chance of its turning up a prize, — espe- 
cially as the ticket is to be had only for the asking, or 
rather, consists only in that. While they were begging, 
a man offered me some late Roman copper coins, which 
he said he had found in the fields. As usual, one of 
them was of Maxentius, who seems, by the number of 
his ugly coins that are turned up, to have inundated the 
land with his brass. One of the girls said she had an 
old silver coin at home, but her home was two miles off, 
and it was too late in the afternoon to wait for her to go 
and fetch it. 



174 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Just outside the southern wall runs a little torrent, by 
whose side is a rocky bank, in which are many tombs, 
Etruscan and Roman. The shepherds use them now for 
shelter, and the entrances of many of them are half 
closed with the thick growth of grass and shrubs. They 
possess little distinguishing interest ; — they are only the 
tombs of the unknown people who lived in the city close 
by. There are some Etruscan inscriptions between here 
and Civita Castellana, but no one has made out their 
meaning. It is a strange thing to know so much as we 
do of the external life of the Etruscans, and so little of 
their inner life, and of the events in their history. From 
their tombs, their bronzes, their vases, and their jewelry, 
we may read something of their character, learn some- 
thing of their art and of their religion ; but, after all, 
it is very little, and the past shuts down around them like 
a mist over a distant mountain. 



Perugia, 5th June, 1856. 

Not long since, an evening school, similar to those in 
Rome, was established here by some private persons in- 
terested to do what could be best done for the poor of 
Perugia. It was kept for boys who were employed at 
work during the day. The authorities found it incon- 
venient, and suppressed it. 

In 1849, the old fortifications that command the city, 
built by Pope Paul III., expressly " ad coercendam Pe- 
rusinorum audaciam" were dismantled by the people, 



BOLOGNA. 175 

during the short time in which they held their own. The 
present government is now restoring them. 

To-day being market-day, a great number of peasants 
were in the town. In the centre of the crowd in the 
square was a boy with a lottery-wheel, selling numbers 
from it, corresponding to the numbers in a book of for- 
tunes. He was doing a good business. 



Bologna, 14th June, 1856. 

The character of the criticisms passed by travellers 
upon works of Art is generally worthless ; but the ex- 
tracts given in " Murray," in regard to the pictures in the 
Academy here, from Mr. John Bell's book on Italy, — a 
work not without reputation, — are more curiously and 
elaborately bad, as specimens of criticism, than are com- 
mon. That they should be given in the only good hand- 
book for Italy, in English, to help travellers in forming 
a judgment in regard to the merits of the famous works 
in this collection, is a striking proof how little accu- 
racy and good sense are in general required in such 
criticism, how readily people yield to pretension, and 
how easily they are deceived by sounding words and 
unmeaning phrases. 

The first extract from Mr. Bell is upon a picture of 
the Madonna and Child by Ludovico Caracci. He says 
that " it is an inimitable painting, in which the artist has 
displayed the richest stores of genius." And he amplifies 
this statement as follows : " St. Francis kissing the child's 
hand is painted in a dark tone, not to interfere with the 



176 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

principal figures, and is yet finely made out, as are the 
angels and the other accompaniments of the picture ; the 
coloring soft and sweetly tinted, the whole being, with 
wonderful art and keeping, entirely subordinate to the 
great object of the composition." This seems a little 
vague. St. Francis painted in a dark tone ! Is it a low 
tone or dark colors that is meant ? And yet his figure 
finely made out ! Pray, why should not a figure that 
stands prominent in a picture be finely made out ? " The 
coloring soft and sweetly tinted, the whole being, with 
wonderful art and keeping, entirely subordinate to the 
great object of the composition." What does this mean, 
— this "whole" being subordinate to the object of the 
composition ? 

But this is not equal to what follows. In his remarks 
upon one of Tiarini's pictures, Mr. Bell says, — " The fig- 
ures are considerably smaller than life, which might be 
supposed to hurt the general effect ; but the composition 
is so perfect as to leave no feeling in the mind but that 
of admiration." Now it happens that the figures in this 
picture are not smaller than life ; but, if they were so, 
what an amusing and ignorant absurdity it is to suggest 
that figures below life-size might hurt " the general 
effect " ! Is it needful, to produce what Mr. Bell would 
call a good general effect, that all the figures in a picture 
should be life-size or gigantic ? Baffaelle's " St. Cecilia," 
hanging just opposite, might have taught the hastiest 
observer and the most thoughtless critic better. Is the 
picture of the Vision of Ezekiel less sublime because it 
is on a foot square of canvas ? 



BOLOGNA. 177 

In speaking of Domenichino's " Martyrdom of St. 
Agnes," Mr. Bell says, — " The serene and beautiful 
countenance of the Saint is irradiated by an expression 
of rapt holiness and heavenly resignation infinitely touch- 
ing." Such, undoubtedly, it would have been well that 
the expression of the Saint should be ; but such it is not ; 
for its coarse materialism, disgusting exaggeration, and 
the utter want of elevation or truth of expression, this 
picture is one of the worst even of the Bolognese school. 
But Mr. Bell goes on to say, — " The episode of the two 
women forming the foreground of one corner of the pic- 
ture, who are represented as hiding the face and stilling 
the screams of a terrified child, affords a scene of fine 
action, very admirably delineated." No such scene as 
this exists in the picture. In the right foreground is a 
woman with a frightened child, but she is inattentive to 
its screams, and doing nothing to hide its face. Behind 
this group, and quite separate from it, are two other 
women, occupied with their own terrors. Such careless- 
ness of criticism is inexcusable ; but, fortunately, errors 
like this may be set right by the most inattentive eyes. 
Again, in regard to Domenichino's " Martyrdom of St. 
Peter Martyr," Mr. Bell says, — " The elevated and ex- 
alted resignation painted on the features of a noble coun- 
tenance, the effect of the black drapery cast around the 
kneeling figure, and held in one large, majestic fold by 
the left hand, has a combined effect of grandeur and 
chaste simplicity, which is inexpressibly fine." The 
elevated resignation and the effect of the drapery has a 
combined effect inexpressibly fine ! But, unfortunately 
12 



178 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

for all this fine writing, there is no kneeling figure in 
the picture. The Saint is prostrate on the ground ; 
the murderer stands over him, holding the Saint's black 
robe, but scarcely in what is to be termed a " majestic 
fold." 

After what is intended for a piece of very eloquent 
and magnificent writing, in the account of Guido's " Mas- 
sacre of the Innocents," in which " the outcry of one 
mother," " the pale, dishevelled aspect of another," " the 
despair and agony of a third," and " the murdered babes 
lying on the blood-stained marble, huddled together," are 
fully described, Mr. Bell concludes with the startling 
assertion, that these figures "present an historical picture, 
perhaps the most domestic and touching that ever was 
painted." Do mothers in anguish, and murdered babes, 
form a characteristically domestic scene? Such writing as 
this is absolutely intolerable. Had it been intended as a 
travesty upon the usual style of criticism, it would have 
been considered dull extravagance ; but here it passes for 
serious earnest, and is quoted as worth reading. 

It is not worth while to go on. These passages are 
fair samples of the whole ; and it is unsatisfactory work 
to expose such presumptuous imbecility. 

There is great want of a good artistic guide-book for 
Italy. Kugler's work on Italian Art is the only one that 
approaches to what is needed ; but Kugler is thoroughly 
German in his dulness, and in many of his notions about 
Art. Lord Lindsay's " Christian Art," and Mrs. Jame- 
son's " Legendary Art," both in many respects excellent, 
are too limited in their scope to serve as guide-books, 



BOLOGNA. 179 

besides being too cumbrous and expensive for the major- 
ity of travellers. In American literature there is nothing 
that deserves notice as a help to the lover of Art in Italy, 
and, of all travellers, Americans need such help the most. 
We come abroad utterly ignorant of Art, and, with nat- 
ural and national self-confidence, at once constitute our- 
selves judges and critics of paintings and statues. The 
audacity of our ignorance halts at nothing ; and a five- 
minutes' visit to the Sistine Chapel qualifies us to de- 
cide on the powers of Michel Angelo. The majority 
of American travellers have yet to learn that some pre- 
vious knowledge is to be acquired before one can be a 
judge even of the externals of Art ; that it is not the 
eye alone that needs cultivation, but the heart and the 
intellect as well, by those who would understand and 
enjoy the works of the great masters. You may judge 
correctly of the merits of a poem in a language which you 
do not know, as easily as you can judge correctly of the 
merits of a picture while you are ignorant of those prin- 
ciples that are, as it were, the alphabet of Art. If you 
are unwilling to accept the authority of others, it is well 
to remember that the only independence of judgment 
that deserves the name is that which rests upon a basis 
of humility, and of desire to learn how to judge cor- 
rectly. It is somewhat damaging to our national vanity 
to find that the worst pictures are purchased by Amer- 
icans, or for the American market. Many an American 
who comes to Rome and Florence thinks it will not do 
for him to go home without taking a picture from Italy, 
as a proof of his taste and a record of his travels. He 



180 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

puts himself into the hands of a commissionaire, who 
takes him to shops where he is sure to be flattered and 
cheated. He buys a black, patched-up landscape, " a 
real Salvator," bright with varnish, and in a carved 
frame ; or he purchases one of the watery copies of some 
picture that suits common taste, because painted on the 
level of common-place, uneducated feeling. His com- 
missionaire makes the bargain, and receives a good pro- 
portion of the sum apparently paid for the picture. All 
other commissionaires are most dishonest rogues ; this 
one alone is trustworthy. Our countryman goes back to 
his hotel, and thinks he has made a good bargain, since 
he paid only twenty dollars for a head, while the poor 
American artist, whose studio he went to the day before, 
asks two hundred and fifty dollars for the picture he has 
just painted. Or perhaps our friend has paid a large 
sum for his picture ; he has got a genuine Murillo, or a 
real Titian, — at least, so he has been persuaded by the 
dealer ; and then he congratulates himself that no such 
pictures are painted in our days, — not knowing that 
pictures a thousand times better hang, unbought, in the 
studio of his poor countryman. 

It is no matter of surprise that our best artists find but 
little encouragement, and that Art is considered among 
us generally as a matter of little importance, when one 
sees, by such evidence as is afforded by American travel- 
lers in Italy, the average level of American taste and the 
depth of American ignorance. 



FERRARA. 181 

Feeraka, 16th June, 1856. 
The doctrines of Hell and Purgatory, and of the 
power of the Pope to afford absolution, may be re- 
garded as the corner-stone of the grand edifice of the 
Papacy. From the time that it was established as a 
truth of religion, that there was a hell, and that men 
could be saved from the consequences of their sins, that 
is, could escape from hell, through the intervention of the 
Pope, — from that time, wealth and temporal power 
were assured to the Church. St. Peter's was paid for 
by money raised by the sale of indulgences ; and while 
the material investment appeared in the marbles and 
gilding of the church, the moral investment appeared 
in the denunciations of Luther and the progress of the 
Reformation. The importance of these doctrines to the 
Church led to the subjection of all its other religious dog- 
mas to them. The fall of man, the offended majesty of 
God, the atonement, the justice of the Almighty in con- 
tradistinction to his mercy, the power delegated to St. 
Peter, and, through him, to the Pope, have all been 
made subservient to the support of a belief in the eter- 
nity of punishment, and the opportunity afforded to escape 
from it. The fear of hell became greater than the love 
of heaven ; but the desire for heaven was greater than 
the desire for goodness. The popular imagination was 
easily excited by the delineation of future torments ; and 
Art represented accurately the popular belief. As the 
dread of the vengeance of God increased, the worship 
of Mary, the "Mother of Mercy," increased. In pic- 
tures of the Last Judgment, Mary appears as if pleading 



182 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

with her indignant Son. The genius of Michel Angelo 
has given to these doctrines of fear their most vivid and 
awful representation. God is no longer the Father, but 
the unrelenting Judge condemning his children. Over 
the minds of the common people of Italy these doctrines 
still hold an unshaken supremacy. The love due to God 
is diverted to the Virgin ; the wayside shrines are adorned 
with pictures of souls in the torment of flames, and with 
pictures of the Virgin as the intercessor for fallen man. 
Indulgences are as much sought as ever ; crowds kneel 
before privileged altars ; and the steps of the Scala Santa 
are worn by the knees of constant pilgrims. 

Nor does the Church weary in her teaching. Money 
and power are as important to her now as ever, and con- 
sequently hell and its fires. The Padre Passaglia is 
considered the best scholastic theologian in Rome. His 
lecture-room in the Collegio Romano is crowded five 
times a week by an audience of students in theology from 
all parts of Europe, and from America. His eloquence 
and zeal are like those of the lecturers of old times ; and 
his authority is quoted upon points of doctrine. He has 
lately published a tract, "On the Eternity of Punish- 
ments, and on the Fire of Hell," in which he exerts 
himself to prove the one and the other. It is a piece 
of cold, dry, unfeeling logic. His fifth theorem is, " The 
eternity of punishment is proved by those texts in which 
the damned are deprived of all hope of any future re- 
demption or liberation." * The demonstration of his 

* " In Eeligion, 
What damned error, but some sober brow- 
Will bless it, and approve it with a text? " 



FERRARA. 183 

eighth theorem, in regard to the Fire of Hell, is as fol- 
lows : " The principal efficient cause of fire in the pres- 
ent life is God the Author and Governor of Nature ; 
but of the fire of hell God the Judge and Avenger of 
sin and sinners is the efficient cause. 

" Present fire burns and is supported by chemical 
operations ; but the fire of hell is excited and preserved 
by the breath of the Lord. 

" Present fire does not act upon the soul except 
through the body ; but the fire of hell immediately 
afflicts and torments the soul. 

" Present fire must finally be extinguished ; but the 
fire of hell will last forever. 

" The former shines ; the latter produces outer dark- 
ness. The former, burning, dissolves and consumes ; the 
latter tortures and burns, but yet does not destroy. The 
former may, by human art, be diminished and extin- 
guished ; the latter makes every effort vain, and has the 
power of God for its support." 

Another curious and interesting tract, published last 
year, from which something of the present character of 
the teaching of the Roman Church upon these points 
may be gained, is called, " A Catechism concerning 
Protestantism and the Catholic Church." * It is to be 
noticed that this work appears at Milan, — a city, as 
all the world knows, under Austrian rule, — and that 
the Emperor of Austria, last year, in the concordat made 
with the Pope, signed away, as far as such things can be 

* Per Giovanni Perrotti, Poliantea Cattolica. Milano, 1855. 



184 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

signed away, religious and educational freedom in his 
dominions. The first lesson is on "The Name and 
Origin of Protestantism." The following is one of the 
statements : " The name of Protestant and of Protestant- 
ism is employed to signify the rebellion of all modern 
sects against the Catholic Church founded by Jesus 
Christ ; or, which is the same thing, the rebellion of 
proud men against Jesus Christ, the Founder of that 
Church." The third lesson is on " The Doctrines of 
Protestantism," and ends with the pupil's saying, " These 
doctrines strike me with horror ; — are they not, in some 
sense, worse than those of the pagans ? " To which the 
teacher replies : " You are right ; neither pagans nor 
Turks have ever reached such impiety of doctrine." 
The fourth lesson is on " The Authors and First Promul- 
gators of Protestantism," of which the following extract 
will serve as a specimen : " Luther was an apostate. 
After he had married a nun, he had, as his first disciples, 
Carlostadius, Melancthon, Lange, and others of the same 
sort, — all of a piece. Carlostadius was an apostate, and 
he also took a wife. Melancthon was a hypocrite, a dis- 
sembler, cruel, a blasphemer, and devoted to judicial as- 
trology. Lange was an ex-friar, like Luther ; and he, 

too, married Calvin died madly blaspheming, and 

invoking the Devil." There is much more matter as 
remarkable as that here quoted, serving to illustrate the 
ideas prevalent among the supporters of the Catholic 
Church in regard to Protestantism, and the mode adopted 
to deter the young religious inquirer from adopting a form 
of belief so pernicious. A curious description is given 



FERRARA. 185 

of the signs by which the disseminators of Protestantism 
are to be recognized, in which it is stated that " you 
should know, that, in England, within a short time, the 
desire has been frequently expressed of renewing the 
executions practised for about three centuries upon the 
poor Catholics." But it is Lesson XV. that is most im- 
portant to our present purpose. This lesson is, a On 
the Certain Damnation of Apostate Catholics " ; and the 
teacher asserts in the course of it, that " it is certain with 
the certainty of faith, that all Catholics who become Prot- 
estants are irretrievably damned for all eternity, except 
in case of sincere repentance before death, accompanied 
with the abjuration of their errors." This portion of 
the Catechism closes with the statement, that " there is 
nothing in these pages which cannot be confirmed with 
irrefragable proofs and arguments." 

Such is a specimen of the authorized teaching of the 
Church in 1856. Is it strange that superstition still pre- 
vails in Italy ? Christianity is degraded into a creed of 
fear; and, to the lively imagination of the Italian, the 
horrors of hell are pictured with such force as to form 
the prevailing motive of his so-called religion. 

" A woman went through the streets of Alexandria, in 
Egypt, — her feet bare, her hair dishevelled, with a torch 
in one hand, and a jar of water in the other. She said, 
— ' With this torch I will burn heaven, and with this 
water put out hell, that man may love God for Himself 
alone.'" 



186 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Venice, 5th July, 1856. 

The mosaics in the vestibule of St. Mark's are, per- 
haps, the most interesting of the long series of these 
works with which the roof of the cathedral is covered. 
They comprise some of the best mosaics of the thirteenth, 
and some of the best, also, of the sixteenth century ; and 
the sharp contrast between them shows, at a. glance, the 
course of Art during this interval of three centuries, from 
its first struggles to free itself from the bands of Byzan- 
tine swaddling-clothes, to the near period of its decrep- 
itude and decline. They afford, also, curious incidental 
illustrations of the character and spirit of the workmen 
of the one time and of the other. 

In the intention of the early builders of the church, 
the vestibule, or atrium, was regarded as that portion of 
the sacred building which was appropriated to those who 
had not been received into the full standing of members 
of the Church of Christ. It was for the unbaptized, and 
for new converts, and perhaps, also, for such as might 
have fallen into sin, and who, as penitents, sought for a 
second admittance within the fold. The subjects to 
which the attention of such persons was to be directed 
were, for the most part, chosen from the Old Testament, 
and the old mosaics in the vestibule of St. Mark's rep- 
resent scenes taken from the Books of Genesis and 
Exodus, beginning with the Creation and the Fall of 
Man, and going on through the histories of Noah, Abra- 
ham, Joseph, and Moses, ending with the representation 
of the miracle of the Fall of Manna. The series of sub- 
jects is similar to that which is found in like places in 



VENICE. 187 

many other cathedrals ; but there are few where the de- 
signs are so numerous, or where the story is so regu- 
larly carried forward. 

The earliest in the order of arrangement are those on 
the right hand of the main entrance. In the cupola in 
the roof, over the door, of which the bronSe valves were 
brought from Constantinople, is a series representing the 
Creation and the Fall of Man. The popular belief, de- 
rived as much from favorite apocryphal stories as from 
the account in the Bible, is here curiously exhibited. 
The second subject, for instance, is that of the Creation 
of Angels, by whom the Creator is accompanied in the 
after works. The quaint simplicity and honest straight- 
forwardness of treatment, combined now and then with 
a sudden and surprising attempt to express some poetic 
conception or vivid imagination, in which the hand of 
the designer fell short of his desire, and failed him at the 
moment when its best skill was most needed, are often 
strikingly manifest. But in these very shortcomings of 
manual execution, as compared with the vigor of concep- 
tion, lie the promise and the certainty of the rapid prog- 
ress of Art. Thought had freed itself from traditional 
restraints, by which for centuries it had been held in 
check, and the hand was sure soon to become obedient 
to the directing will. 

The cupola is divided into three bands, in the second 
of which occurs the picture of the Creation of Man. 
The Creator is seated on a throne, and is forming man 
from the dust of the earth. The angels stand around, 
looking on. Man is represented as a black, inanimate 



188 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

figure. This is followed by the blessing of the seventh 
day, in which the day appears as an angel kneeling to 
receive the benediction. The next is the giving of the 
soul to man. Man stands before the Creator, who holds 
up towards his mouth a little figure with butterfly-wings, 
— this figure being intended to represent, the soul. The 
third range of the cupola contains the scenes in Paradise, 
and the expulsion from it, — all of them curious in de- 
sign, but all rendered so plainly as to be intelligible 
to any one who had read or had heard the story from 
Genesis. This was the first lesson to be learned, and 
no one could fail to understand its meaning, written, in 
glowing colors, on a ground of gold, and in clear, though 
awkward, lines. Each of the pictures is accompanied 
with an inscription, taken generally from the Scripture 
narrative. 

The place of the old mosaics over the main door has 
been filled by later ones ; and it does not appear what 
were the subjects of the earlier works. They probably 
did not belong to the series of subjects from the Old Tes- 
tament, but were detached and separate works, represent- 
ing, it is not unlikely, Death and the Judgment, Heaven 
and Hell. 

The remaining spaces of the ceiling of the atrium are 
occupied with subjects from the Old Dispensation, and 
there appears to have been an obvious and impressive 
meaning, as has been pointed out by Mr. Ruskin, in the 
conclusion of the series with the miracle of the Fall of 
Manna. It was to direct the thoughts of the disciple to 
the words of Christ, — " Your fathers did eat manna, and 



VENICE. 189 

are dead " ; and to lead him to remember that living 
bread which " if any man eat, he shall live forever." 
And tins thought would be still more strongly impressed 
upon him, when, returning from the northern end of 
the vestibule, where this miracle was represented, he 
entered the central door of the church, and, turning, saw 
above it, on the wall, a grand and solemn mosaic of the 
Saviour " enthroned, with the Virgin on one side, and 
St. Mark on the other, in attitudes of adoration, — Christ 
being represented as holding a book open upon his knee, 
on which is written, 'I am the door: by me if any 

MAN ENTER IN, HE SHALL BE SAVED.' On the red 

marble moulding which surrounds the mosaic is written, 

' I AM THE GATE OF LIFE : LET THOSE WHO ARE MINE 

enter by me.' Above, on the red marble fillet which 
forms the cornice of the west end of the church, is writ- 
ten, with reference to the figure of Christ below, ' Who 

HE WAS, AND FROM WHOM HE CAME, AND AT WHAT 
PRICE HE REDEEMED THEE, AND WHY HE MADE THEE 
AND GAVE THEE ALL THINGS, DO THOU CONSIDER.' " * 

The mosaics were thus designed, not merely for the 
adornment of the church, but also for the instruction of 
the people. Every part had a religious significance, 
either in plain words or in symbolic suggestion. " The 
visible temple was a type of the invisible Church of 
God." 

From the eleventh to the fifteenth century, mosaic* 
workers seem to have been employed with few intervals 
upon the church roof. It does not appear at what period 

* Stones of Venice, ii. Ill, 112. 



190 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the whole was completed, but it was probably during the 
fifteenth century that the last mosaic of that series which 
had been commenced almost four hundred years before 
was finished, and the great design of the original builders 
fulfilled. With the sixteenth century a new period be- 
gins. Some of the oldest mosaics had been injured by 
time and accident. The resources of painting had been 
wonderfully developed ; the old designs looked poor and 
meagre, beside the splendid work of the new school of 
Venetian painters. The meaning of the' early artists 
was now no longer read, or, if read, was but little re- 
garded. No reverence was felt for their pious work ; and 
the procurators of St. Mark's determined, that, instead 
of restoring those of the old mosaics which stood in need 
of repair, they should be removed, and their places sup- 
plied by entirely new work. The best artists were em- 
ployed on these new mosaics, and their names have come 
down to us, not only in the records of the works, but in 
the inscriptions which they took care to place on the pic- 
tures themselves. The most famous of them were the 
brothers Francesco and Valerio Zuccato, both of them 
the friends of Titian, who seems to have had for the 
elder of them, Francesco, a more than common regard. 
To these brothers was intrusted the work of making 
fresh mosaics in the vestibule over the main door of en- 
trance ; and here may now be seen their brighter colors 
and richer and more skilful designs, contrasting with the 
older mosaics on each side. In the lunette over the door 
is a figure of St. Mark. He is represented as standing 
with his arms raised, and his face turned toward heaven, 



VENICE. 191 

from which a hand appears, in the act of blessing. He 
is dressed in rich vestments, and the whole ground upon 
which the figure is relieved is of gold. This is the first 
mosaic that strikes the eye of the stranger as he enters 
the vestibule through the outer central door. Its colors 
are as glowing and fresh as when it was first set in its 
place. There is, perhaps, no more highly finished work 
of the kind in the whole church than this. The design 
for it is said to have been given to the Zuccati by Titian ; 
and the internal evidence afforded by the figure of the 
Evangelist is such as to give authority to the tradition. 
The hardness of line, the too great sharpness of light and 
shadow, the wanf*of softness and harmony in color, which 
are faults often to be found in mosaics of all ages, have 
been so far successfully avoided in this, that the proud 
inscription which the artists placed under the feet of St. 
Mark appears not as a piece of vaingloriousness, but 
rather as a just claim on the applause of all who may 
look at their work, and a fit expression of their own as- 
surance of its excellence. MDXLV. Ubi diligenter 

INSPEXERIS, ARTEMQUE AC LABOREM FrANCISCI ET 

Valerii Zucati, Venetor., fratrum, agnoveris, 
TU^i demum judicato. " When you have carefully 
looked and recognized the art and the labor of Francis 
and Valerius Zuccato, brothers, of Venice, then finally 
judge." 

But if this inscription be pleasant to read, in view of 
the merit of the work and the satisfaction of the work- 
men, it is far otherwise when one considers the place in 
which it is set, and the incongruity between it and the in- 



192 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

scriptions on the more ancient mosaics. The entrance to 
that house which men have dedicated to the Most High 
is no place for the exhibition of pride in their own work, 
and for boastfulness of its excellence. There is no more 
forcible illustration of the difference in the spirit of the 
earlier workers and that of the workers of the sixteenth 
century, to be found in all Venice, (and such illustra- 
tions are by no means uncommon here,) than is to be 
found in these inscriptions. The one was the spirit of 
an age of faith, in which men considered the best that 
they could do as but a poor offering to God, and took de- 
light in their calling as a means of expressing their deep- 
est convictions, — an age, not of pride and self-satisfac- 
tion, but of comparative simplicity and self-forgetfulness. 
The other was the spirit of an age of formal reverence 
and real infidelity, in which men worked with reference 
not so much to the glory of God as to their own am- 
bitions and petty fames, and by their example and their 
works led on that period of debasement in religion, in 
philosophy, and Art, from which we are now so imper- 
fectly and tediously struggling out. The decline of Art 
is to be dated from the time when artists began to work 
for purely worldly ends. Men of genius, it is true, pre- 
pared and disciplined by the works of those who had 
preceded them, using the slowly accumulated experience 
of many generations, and freed from clogging convention- 
alisms, accomplished, after the period of faithlessness had 
begun, works more splendid in color, more accurate and 
rich in design, more complete in what are technically 
called artistic qualities, than any that had been accom- 



VENICE. 193 

plished before. But their greatness had the seeds of 
decay within itself; and a wise critic, contemporary with 
Titian, Michel Angelo, and Raffaelle, might have fore- 
told, judging from their works alone, that they were the 
immediate forerunners of the decline and fall of Art. 

On the other side of the vestibule, opposite their figure 
of St. Mark, the Zuccati executed a mosaic of the Depo- 
sition from the Cross, and under it placed the inscription, 

Naturae saxibus, Zucatorum fratrum ingenio, 

which may, perhaps, be translated, " Made with the stones 
of Nature by the genius of the brothers Zuccati." The 
inscription is curious, not merely for its bad Latin, but 
for the results which followed this error in declension. 
The success of the Zuccati was so great, and the ap- 
proval of their mosaics so general, that the directors 
of the works on St. Mark's increased their salary, and 
allotted to them new and important places, where the 
old mosaics were to be removed, and new ones sub- 
stituted. The magician had come with his new, bright 
lamps, which he offered in exchange for the dull and 
ugly old one. How often in the history of Art has the 
magic lamp been flung away, without getting even so 
much as a common new one in exchange ! 

But the brilliant fortune of the Zuccati excited the jeal- 
ousy of the other mosaic-masters who were employed on 
St. Mark's, and reports were spread to their discredit, 
which, being brought to the ears of the procurators, de- 
termined them to institute an investigation to discover 
the truth. The most important of the charges brought 

13 



194 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

against the brothers was that of having increased the ef- 
fect of their mosaics by painting ; but it was also said that 
the stones were badly set ; that they worked out of season, 
in unfair competition ; and, more than this, Valerio was 
charged with not understanding his art, and with spending 
his time in his shop, making designs for coifs, vestures, 
and open-work, instead of being at work at St. Mark's. 
In support of these charges, one of their rivals, Bartolom- 
meo Bozza, who had formerly been one of their pupils, 
pointed out some little buildings, in the hand of an angel, 
that were painted, and certain clouds above and below 
the Evangelists, in the vestibule between the two doors, 
which were made with the paint-brush, and not with 
colored glass or stones, as they should have been, ac- 
cording to the orders of the procurators. The other 
mosaics were then washed with a sponge and sand, to 
discover if there were painting upon them. In going 
over that of the Deposition from the Cross, a bit of 
paper that had been pasted upon a part of the inscrip- 
tion was washed off. This was regarded as a further 
proof of the deceptions practised by the Zuccati ; for it 
appeared that the error they had committed in the word 
saxibus having been pointed out to them, they had cor- 
rected the mistake by putting a bit of painted paper, with 
the right word upon it, over the wrong. The mosaics, 
however, on the whole, stood the test well ; and finally, 
on the 9th of May, 1563, the most distinguished painters 
in Venice, having examined the works, were called upon 
for their opinion. Such a jury of great artists has seldom 
been gathered together. It was composed of Titian, Tin- 



VENICE. 195 

toret, Paul Veronese, Schiavone, and one Jacopo Pistoia, 
whose name is hardly known except for this mention of it. 
There was little disagreement among them. Titian was 
warm in his praise of the works, and in defending the 
Zuccati ; and all declared, that, although it could not be 
denied that in some places the paint-brush had been used, 
yet, after the color thus applied had been removed by 
washing, the mosaic had apparently lost nothing ; and 
that their design, and the skill with which they were 
made, were in the highest degree worthy of praise. 
After such testimony to their merits, the accusations that 
had been brought against the Zuccati were reduced to 
their just value ; and the procurators, satisfied with the 
general excellence of the work, condemned the brothers 
only to remake, at their own expense, in mosaic, such 
parts as had been painted, and suspended the salary 
of Valerio until he should give new proof of under- 
standing his art. Valerio showed, as a proof of his 
knowledge, the half-figure of St. Clement, over the right- 
hand door leading from the atrium into the church, which 
he had made by himself; but it had been made many 
years before, and some new work was now required from 
him.* It does not appear that the Zuccati ever remade 
the portions of their work which had been painted ; and 
any one going into St. Mark's may read the word saxibus 
still plain in the inscription, — a memorial of their un- 
successful trick to hide their bad Latin, and of the praise 
given to their mosaics by the greatest masters of Venetian 

* George Sand has made this story of the Zuccati the basis of her 
tale of Les Maitres Mosaistes. 



196 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Art. And any one walking up and down the atrium, over 
the beautiful, time-worn, uneven pavement, may see, in 
the earlier and the later mosaics, not only works of Art 
well worthy his regard, but firm-set and enduring types 
of the rise and of the fall of Venice. 



ROME. 



ROME. 



Rome, 5th December, 1856. 
As I entered Rome once more, just before sunset this 
evening, Shakespeare's words were running in my mem- 
ory, 

" Was't not a happy star 
Led us to Rome?" 

and the suggestive ruins and dark aspect of the narrow 
streets, full of remembered interest and of power over 
the imagination, brought to mind the greeting of Titus 
Andronicus to the city, 

" Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds ! " 

Then I went on to think what else Shakespeare had 
said of historic or prophetic application to Rome. 

The batteries of the castle of St. Angelo pointed upon 
the city, and the French sentinels at its gate, told of dis- 
quiet and insecurity, of passions repressed by force, of 
ill-will between rulers and people, of oppression and 
of hatred. 

" Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive 
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?" 



200 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

It does not require a long stay in the city to discover 
that 

" Here is a mourning Home, a dangerous Koine " ; 

while the beggars, the priests, the monks, the idlers, 
who fill the streets, cause one to exclaim, 

" What trash is Eome, 
What rubbish, and what offal! " 

One needs but to 

" Look round about the wicked streets of Rome," 

to feel as if it were true indeed that 

" The sun of Eome is set," — 

that the ancient mother of so many noble men, of so 
many heroes and poets, 

" Has lost the breed of noble bloods." 

Years of suffering and disappointment have quenched 
the old spirit, and from 

" The sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome," 

little is to be hoped of wise counsel, of hearty resolution, 
of vigorous effort. 

" Romans now 
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; 
But, woe the while ! their fathers' minds are dead, 
And they are governed with their mothers' spirits. 
Their yoke and sufferance show them womanish." 



ROME. 201 

And yet Rome may, perhaps, again be Roman. All 
hope is not dead. Tyranny and falsehood are not eter- 
nal. And even though in their fall they crush the city 
utterly, and leave its hills desolate, then, if need be, for 
their destruction, 

"Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch 
Of the rang'd empire fall! Kingdoms are clay." 



Rome, 18th December, 1856. 

The old column for the new monument in the Piazza 
di Spagna, in honor of the Virgin of the Immaculate Con- 
ception, and in memory of the promulgation of the dogma, 
was raised to-day and set upon its base. The architect 
who directed the work adopted much the same means of 
operation as Fontana employed for raising the obelisk 
in front of St. Peter's, about which the famous story of 
" Wet the Ropes " is told. For some weeks the Piazza 
has been blocked up at the end near the Propaganda 
with a clumsy and enormous inclined plane of timber, for 
the purpose of rolling the column up to a level with the 
top of the base of the monument. The immense extent 
of timber-work gave rise to a pasquinade in which there 
was some humor : " Lost, an architect, supposed to have 
missed his way in the forest in the Piazza di Spagna ! " 

There was no religious ceremony connected with the 
raising of the column ; and the Pope, although greatly 
interested in the work, was not present even as a spec- 
tator. The people say he stayed away on account of his 
evil eye. A large proportion of the spectators, both in 



202 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the square and in the neighboring houses, were foreign- 
ers. The Komans do not like the monument ; — it costs 
too much money, and their taxes are heavy. The win- 
dows of the Propaganda were occupied by cardinals, 
while Queen Christina, no fear being felt of her evil eye, 
was looking on from one of the windows of the Spanish 
palace. 

A troop of soldiers was stationed around the board 
fence which inclosed the monument, to keep the crowd 
at a proper distance, and within the inclosure were the 
city firemen, in their blue dresses and brass-topped caps, 
manning the windlasses by which the column was to be 
hoisted. Before the work began, the ropes, already 
damp with the morning rain, were well wet, and then, 
at the sound of a trumpet, the men began to turn the 
windlasses, and the great mass moved slowly. As the 
column rose and the creaking ropes bore the strain, 
the clouds broke, and, just as it settled down upon the 
base prepared for it, the sun came out brightly. A band 
played a march, the people quickly dispersed, the draper- 
ies were pulled in from the windows, and the workmen 
unwound the covering of ropes in which the pillar had 
been bound, showing the fine green veins of the cipollino 
marble. Next summer four statues of the prophets are 
to be set at its foot, and it is to be crowned with one of 
the Virgin sine labe concepta. It promises, when finished, 
to be as ugly as most of the public monuments of Rome: 
When will architects and artists learn that a column is 
not a proper pedestal for a statue ? 

Two facts connected with this column are curious. It 



ROME. 203 

once belonged to a building of l,he Empire, and has been 
lying for centuries on the Quirinal. In repolishing it for 
its present use, it was found not to be sound, and it 
has been cased, for security, nearly half way up, in 
bronze open-work. The statue of the Virgin on its sum- 
mit will afford a curious type of the Roman Church 
itself, based upon unsound supports derived from heathen 
times. 

Rome, 19th December, 1856. 
As I was riding this afternoon beyond the noble old 
basilica of San Lorenzo, one of the Papal gendarmeria 
came up behind me on a stout, black horse, and joined 
me with a salutation of " Good day, Excellency ! " — I 
responded, and praised his horse. — " Yes, Signore," an- 
swered he, " he is a good horse, but he has twenty years. 
I bought him last year for eighteen scudi ; but he brought 
me from Tivoli last night, and will go back to-night, and 
will eat well." — " Are the roads quiet, now ? " — " Ah, 
Excellency, the poor must live, and the winter is hard, 
and there is no work ! " — " But how was the harvest ? " 

— " Small enough, Signore ! There is no grain at Tivoli, 
and no wine ; and as for the olives, a thousand trees have 
not given the worth of a baioccoP — " And what does the 
government do for the poor ? " — " Nothing, nothing at 
all." — " And the priests ? " — " Eh ! vivono benone, sent- 
pre benone ; godono questo mondo, — ma ? " (They live 
well, always well ; they have a good time in this world, 

— but?) 



204 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Rome, 22d December, 1856. 
To-day, as I was passing the steps of Santa Maria 
Maggiore, a beggar called out to me, " Excellency, give 
me a baiocco, and I will go up the Scala Santa for your 
profit." This was a good offer, for he who devoutly 
ascends the Scala Santa on his knees gains nine years 
of indulgence for each of its twenty-eight steps, — and 
thus, for a baiocco, I might have gained vicariously two 
hundred and fifty-two years' indulgence. As I continued 
my walk, and came in sight of St. Peter's dome, I was 
reminded of the traffic by which the Papal treasury had 
been supplied with means for the completion of the great 
church, — and it seemed to me that this church might, in 
some sort, be regarded as the monument erected in Rome 
in memory of the principles of the Reformation. 

But those principles have made little advance in Rome 
itself. Take this matter of Indulgences, for example. 
Although the public sale of them is no longer continued, 
and although many of the abuses connected with them 
have been done away, yet, among the common people, 
they are regarded in the same way as of old, and the 
beggar's speech shows that they still afford the means of 
private, if not of public gain. 

As in so many instances of ecclesiastical doctrine and 
discipline, the teaching of the Church upon this subject 
is not properly understood by the mass either of Roman- 
ists or of Protestants. The Church teaches one thing in 
formal words, and allows another in common practice and 
belief. This creates confusion, and affords a loop-hole 
of escape from the reproaches of adversaries. But even 



ROME. 205 

taking the most favorable view of the doctrine of the 
Church in the matter of Indulgences, as it is declared at 
the present day, it will be found to afford ample room for 
the starting-point of a new Reformation. 

There is a book, easily obtainable at Rome, called 
"A Collection of those Prayers and Pious Works to 
which Holy Indulgences have been conceded by the 
Popes." * The copy which I have is of the twelfth Ro- 
man edition, published in 1849, with the express sanction 
of the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of Indul- 
gences. Its five hundred and twenty-seven pages are 
occupied only with those Indulgences which have been 
granted in perpetuo ; all those which are limited in time, 
or to a special place, with the exception of a few in 
Rome, being excluded. 

Prefixed to this list is a short essay on Indulgences, 
and on the conditions required to obtain them. It may 
be considered as an authoritative statement of the present 
doctrine of the Church upon this matter. According to 
this doctrine, sin produces two results in the soul, — the 
guilt which deprives us of the grace of God, and the 
punishment which prevents us from enjoying him in 
Paradise. This punishment is either eternal or tem- 
poral. From the guilt and the eternal punishment we 
are wholly freed through the infinite merits of Christ in 
the sacrament of Penitence, provided we receive that 

* Raccolta di Orazioni e Pie Opere per le quali sono state concedute 
dai Sommi Pontejici le S. Indulgenze. Decima seconda Edizione Ro- 
mana. Corretta ed accresciuta di altre Concessioni del Sommo Pon- 
tefice Pio IX. Roma, 1849. 



206 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

sacrament with proper dispositions. But as to tem- 
poral punishment, as we are commonly not wholly re- 
lieved from it by means of that sacrament, a great part 
remains to be made up for in this life by good works or 
by repentance, or in the next life to be suffered in the 
fires of Purgatory. " But Christ conferred upon his 
Church from its origin the power of making us par- 
takers in its treasure of holy Indulgences, by virtue of 
which we may, with the slightest inconvenience to our- 
selves, pay in full to the Divine Justice all that we owe 
it for our sins, — they being already pardoned, so far as 
regards the guilt and the eternal punishment. For this 
is a treasure which endures in the sight of God, — the 
treasure of the merits and satisfactions of Jesus Christ, 
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Saints, — or, in 
other words, the sum of the satisfactions offered by our 
Divine Redeemer, which were superabundant and infi- 
nite, and, still further, of those of the most Holy Mary, 
of the Martyrs, and the other Saints, which were not 
needed by them for the expiation of their own faults." 
These treasures suffer no diminution, however much they 
may be drawn upon. 

Indulgences, or drafts upon this treasure, are of two 
classes, — the partial, and the plenary. A partial in- 
dulgence remits the temporal punishment for a limited 
time. That is, if a tolerably small sin be charged against 
us with forty-nine years of Purgatorial fire, seven par- 
tial indulgences of seven years would discharge us of 
this debt. But by a plenary indulgence all the temporal 
punishment due for all our sins is remitted to us, — u so 



ROME. 207 

that, if one should chance to die after having worthily- 
gained a plenary indulgence, the theologians affirm that 
he would go directly to Paradise." 

Nor are indulgences confined to the living; for, al- 
though the Church does not dispense indulgences for the 
dead absolutely, or so that they certainly accrue to the 
advantage of any given individual, she does so by way 
of suffrage, as it is called. That is, one who desires to 
relieve a soul from Purgatory may gain a plenary indul- 
gence, — for a partial one would seem hardly worth gain- 
ing, when plenary are to be had with equal ease, — and 
may then offer it to God, prating Him to apply it to the 
benefit of some special soul. But he cannot be certain 
that God will so apply it ; he cannot " make the indul- 
gence over to that soul, as if it were his own to bestow." 

The conditions, by fulfilment of which indulgences are 
to be gained, are, first, that whoever desires to obtain an 
indulgence must be in a state of grace. This is secured 
by true repentance combined with confession and com- 
munion. If, however, for any reason, it is impossible 
to confess previously to fulfilling the special conditions 
attached to an indulgence, it is well to have a firm inten- 
tion to confess, in order to recover the Divine grace, 
should it have been lost. A weekly confession is suffi- 
cient to secure the benefits of all such indulgences as are 
to be gained from day to day, unless one should be con- 
scious of the- guilt of a mortal sin committed since the 
last confession, in which case a new confession becomes 
necessary. 

In the second place, all the special conditions attached 



208 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

to any indulgence must be accurately performed. As, for 
instance, one must not stand when the indulgence has 
been granted for an act upon the knees. To ascend the 
Scala Santa on one's feet would be an act of impiety ; to 
go up its steps upon one's knees — a not difficult labor, 
except for the stout or the rheumatic, for whom easier 
modes of indulgence are provided — gains the remission 
of two centuries and a half of Purgatorial fire. 

And, finally, in the third place, to obtain plenary in- 
dulgence, it is needful that one should hold his sins in 
detestation, and should lay aside every inclination towards 
them. And it is furthermore to be desired that the un- 
dertaking to gain indulgences should be accompanied 
by the worthy fruits of penitence, the good works and 
penances of piety and devotion, in order to give some 
satisfaction to the Divine Justice for the faults which 
have been committed. 

Such is the general theory of Indulgences. The Dedi- 
cation of this Collection of Prayers affords a curious 
illustration of practical opinion in regard to their efficacy. 
The Dedication is addressed (and it is to be remembered 
that this book has the highest ecclesiastical sanction) to 
the Holy Souls of Purgatory. The editor of this twelfth 
edition recalls to their remembrance the fact, that the 
original compiler of the work dedicated it to them as a 
token of gratitude for the many graces and favors which 
they had obtained for him, and also because the work 
itself was of special interest to them, on account of so 
many indulgences being applicable to them by way of 
suffrage. "Accept, then," he goes on, "accept, dear^ 



ROME. 209 

Souls, this little offering, and consider the end that I pro- 
pose and the affection with which I offer it. Spread over 
me, Elect Souls, your most efficacious protection, . . . 
and may this work bring to you that entrance for which 
you sigh into the kingdom of glory ! " 

Over the doors of many churches in Rome, and in 
other cities, is to be seen an inscription, often bearing 
much the character of a sign-board, with the words, 
" Plenary Indulgence every day," — signifying, that, by 
some Papal concession, plenary indulgence is to be 
gained by attendance on the Mass at some special altar 
in the church, or by the repetition of certain prayers at 
this altar, on any day of the year. This sign has the 
value of a recommendation of the church to the faithful, 
and affords a means of attracting worshippers, whose alms 
increase the revenues of the ecclesiastics attached to it. 

It might be supposed that the ease with which plenary 
indulgence is to be obtained would diminish the zeal in 
seeking for partial indulgences. But such is not the 
case. The occasion of this may be that the imagination 
is less affected by the thought of a complete remission of 
the penalty due than by the consideration of shortening 
the period of punishment by a definite number of days 
or years. Few minds can grasp the indefinite concep- 
tions of eternity with the vigor which may render them 
as satisfactory as those which are bounded by the known 
limits of years. So that, while the church of St. John 
Lateran offers plenary indulgence daily at its altars, they 
are less frequented by the common people, than the steps, 
just across the way, of the Scala Santa. The tendency, 
14 



210 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

in this respect, is toward material rather than spiritual 
conceptions. 

The special observances attached to the obtaining of 
various indulgences afford many illustrations of the pre- 
vailing opinions in regard to the worship and the doctrine 
of the Church. Thus, in the list contained in the Col- 
lection, there are but five forms for the gaining of indul- 
gence connected with the worship of God, in contrast 
with thirty-five connected with that of the Virgin, — and 
of the former, but one is immediately and exclusively 
devoted to the Supreme Being. 

One hundred days of indulgence were granted by 
Pius VII. to whoever devoutly and with contrite heart 
should recite the following ejaculation, as often as he 
might recite it : " Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, I give you 
my soul with my heart ! " This indulgence is also 
applicable to the souls in Purgatory. A more attrac- 
tive form of indulgence for the same period is offered 
to those who repeat the famous hymn, Stabat Mater dolo- 
rosa, — while those who daily recite, at morning, noon, 
and evening, the Angelus Domini and three Ave Marias, 
acquire, not only a hundred days' indulgence by each 
repetition, but once a month plenary indulgence in 
addition. 

In many churches, especially in those frequented by 
the lower classes, a Protestant is often shocked by rep- 
resentations of the crucified Saviour, carved or painted 
of the size of life, and in a style which betrays the ut- 
most brutality of conception and the deadness of all true 
reverence. The bloody horrors and abjectness of these 



ROME. 211 

figures are beyond description. The more physically 
disgusting they are, the better do they seem to be es- 
teemed. Their object is to stimulate dull imaginations 
and to inflame stupid hearts. Possibly this object may 
in some instances be attained ; but a more common 
effect, more common because more natural, is to de- 
grade the popular conceptions of the character and the 
sufferings of the Saviour, to substitute the coarsest fan- 
cies for the most solemn and pathetic truths, and to min- 
ister to a diseased craving for unnatural and detestable 
excitements. In connection with these images, and ap- 
pealing to the same low principles of superstition, are a 
series of prayers to which great indulgences were affixed 
by Pius VII., addressed to "the Most Holy Wounds." 
They are five in number. Too shocking to bear transla- 
tion, (and yet they may be found translated in English 
books of the devotions of the Roman Church,) it is 
enough to read the words with which they open, " Vi 
adoro, Sacratissima Piaga del Piede sinistro del mio Gesu. 
Vi compatisco del dolore acerbissimo sofferto" It is 
enough to read these opening words, and to know that 
they are among the most commonly used acts of devo- 
tion, to gain an ineffaceable impression of the mourn- 
ful perversion of the conceptions of prayer, the destruc- 
tion of its holy sentiment, the loss of its spiritual influ- 
ences, in those who are taught to use such forms, and 
are instructed by the Church which claims absolute sub- 
jection to its teachings, that these prayers are among 
the means of salvation. 
I do not mean to say that many pious and pure-minded 



212 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

persons may not use these prayers in a spirit which may 
render them a true act of worship. I do not mean to 
deny that they may derive a certain feeling of comfort 
from their use, nor that the soul may often, in times of 
weakness, be stimulated to a fervor of sentiment resem- 
bling real strength of religious feeling, by such material 
images and words as these. But even in such instances, 
the prayers and crucifixes of this sort address themselves 
only to the morbid side of human nature. The Roman 
Church is in nothing more skilful than in enlisting the 
weaknesses of human nature in her cause. The blood 
and the wounds of Christ are appeals to the imagination, 
to be heightened by the scenic effects of superstition. I 
have seen in a Roman church a painted representation 
of souls burning and tortured in the fires of Purgatory, 
while above was the Saviour on the cross, and from the 
wounds in his hands and feet and side the blood was 
pouring in streams upon the flames below. Immediately 
at the side of this picture was a money-box with an in- 
scription asking alms for masses for the souls in Purga- 
tory, for whom the Saviour had died. Is it strange that 
one turns away from the system of Rome to the Gospels 
with a sense as of turning to its very contrary ? 

Equally familiar to all visitors of Roman Catholic 
churches are the representations of the Stations of our 
Lord, as they are called. These are usually cheap col- 
ored engravings, fourteen in number, depicting our Sa- 
viour before Pilate, — the scenes where he paused on his 
way from the house of Pilate to Calvary, according to 
the tradition of the Church, — the Crucifixion, the Depo- 



ROME. 213 

sition, and the Laying in the Sepulchre. With these 
pictures is connected the holy exercise of the Via Cru- 
cis, which consists in passing from one to another of these 
stations in their order, with meditation, hymns, and pray- 
ers, in memory and imitation of the Saviour's progress. 
Perhaps there is no devotional service more popular than 
this, joined in as it is at appointed times by processions 
of the people and pious confraternities, and its observ- 
ance being connected with the amplest indulgences. Its 
origin is of ancient date, and, according to the Roman 
authorities, it was instituted by the Virgin herself. Adri- 
chomius, in his famous " Theatrum Terrae Sanctaa," says, 
— " Pia habet traditio majorum Beatam Virginem, quas 
cum suis cruenta Filii sui vestigia ad crucem usque se- 
quuta fuit, post ejus sepulturam hue redeuntem, primam 
Viam Crucis ex devotione calcasse, unde et Christiano- 
rum processiones ac crucis gestationes originem habere 
videntur." And in that book of marvellous, though sanc- 
tified coarseness and impiety, " The Revelations of St. 
Bridget,'' the Saint tells us that the Virgin declared to 
her that she constantly visited the places of the sufferings 
of her Son, — " Omni tempore post ascensionem Filii 
mei, visitavi loca in quibus Ipse passus est." * The 
Popes have liberally dispensed those treasures of the 
Church, which are not to be diminished by any profuse- 
ness of expenditure, upon those who practise this ancient 
form of service ; and one of the most striking sights in 
Rome is due to the regard in which the Via Crucis is 
held. 

* "Lib. vi. cap. 6. 



214 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

It was in 1750, a year of Jubilee, that Benedict XIV. 
instituted a confraternity of both sexes, under the name 
of the Lovers of Jesus and Mary, and gave to them in 
perpetuity the charge of the fourteen stations, and of the 
crucifix which he had that year erected in the Colosseum. 
The confraternity still exists, composed of lay members, 
who practise charitable works, and, on the afternoons of 
Fridays and Sundays and the feast-days of the year, 
assemble within the walls of the Colosseum, and, after 
an exhortation from a Franciscan friar, make the circuit 
of the stations with hymns and prayers. The men are 
dressed in long gray robes, with cowls that completely 
conceal their features. The scene and the service are 
impressive. The loud, clear voice of the friar resounds 
through the dark arches and mounts over the broken 
walls of the amphitheatre. The contrast in associations 
between the memories that belong to the place and its 
present use is strong and affecting, even in this city, 
where the frequency of similar, but less effective con- 
trasts, wearies the feelings. The sermon over, the friar 
descends from his platform, and puts himself at the head 
of the irregular procession. He sings, as he advances to 
the first station, — 

" L' orme sanguigne 
Del mio S ignore 
Tutto dolore 
Seguitero." 

" The bloody steps of my Lord in grief will I follow." 
And the people answer, — 



ROME. 215 

" Vi prego, Gesu buono, 
Per la vostra Passione, 
Darmi il Perdono! " 

" O good Jesus, we pray thee, by thy Passion, give us 
pardon ! " 

The sound of the singing of the people fills the vast 
area of the Colosseum, — that space which has been so 
often filled with the shrieks of the victims of Imperial or 
popular cruelty. For the time, I join in the service, and 
I seem to hear the voices of the martyrs who suffered for 
Christ's sake within these walls, taking part in the hymn 
which the worshippers now kneeling are singing in honor 
of our common Master and Lord. 

"Adoramus te, Christe, et henedicimus tibi ! " sing the 
voices, while others take up the words and respond, 
" Quia per Sanctam Crucem tuam redemisti mundumP 

There is no nobler church in Rome than this, with the 
sky for its dome, with the wall-flowers and the wild trail- 
ing plants for its draperies, with the wind for its great 
organ, and the sun for the lights of its altar, — with its 
soil sanctified by the blood of those who died for the 
Faith, — with its ruinous walls telling of the fall of one 
superstition, and foretelling the fall of another ; — sky, 
and sun, and wind, and earth, and failing human walls, 
all prophesying of the time, near in the sight of God, 
though far off to our eyes, when truth shall prevail, and 
the Church of Christ be but another name for the world. 

But the fervor of the imagination is chilled, and its 
hopes are driven back worsted into the heart, as the sun 
goes down behind the Palace of the Caesars, and, the ser- 



216 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

vice over, the masked brother clinks his money-box at 
the exit of the amphitheatre. The realities of Rome 
again prevail. 

One might suppose, that, with so many and such easy 
opportunities for gaining indulgences during life, few per- 
sons would put off till their last hour the means neces- 
sary to be taken for securing themselves against the 
penal consequences of their sins. But such does not 
seem to be the case, and the Church has provided ple- 
nary indulgence in articulo mortis for all who may then 
receive the priestly benediction. The efficacy of a death- 
bed repentance is unquestioned, particularly when ac- 
companied with devout bequests. Money left for masses 
for the repose of the soul of the dead paves the way to 
eternal bliss ; and in one of the noblest Italian cathedrals 
I have seen a priest on a high festival day sitting at a 
table with an account-book before him, entering in it the 
sums received from the poor worshippers who crowded 
about him, with their money in their hands, to purchase 
masses for the souls of their beloved dead. The money- 
changers had returned to the temple. 

The discussion with regard to the utility of indul 
gences, and the attacks upon the whole system, have 
been going on for centuries, and have engaged the 
forces of the ablest controversialists. That the practice 
of the Church has not been more greatly changed in this 
respect by such persevering assaults affords strong ground 
for believing that a system productive of such scandals 
would not be maintained, unless profit resulted from it to 
the ministers of the Church. The system, moreover, is 



ROME. 217 

maintained with comparative ease, because it harmonizes 
with the weakness of uninstructed human nature, affords 
a pleasant retreat to vice, renders immorality compatible 
with the practices of religion and with the hopes of Par- 
adise, — and also because, so far as Italy is concerned, 
there is no freedom of discussion, and men's minds are 
not stirred with the suggestions of other and more ra- 
tional forms of belief and modes of worship. 

But to an observer stationed outside the Church, and 
watching without passion the course of affairs within, the 
practical results of this doctrine present themselves under 
two aspects. The lessons of past history are repeated in 
present experience ; and the old debate is reopened in 
the latest words of to-day. 

" Ne croyons pas/' says Massillon, " que les graces de 
l'Eglise nous aient purifie, si elles ne nous ont pas 
change ; ne comptons sur son indulgence qu'autant que 
nous pouvons compter sur un sincere repentir." * In his 
noted treatise, " Sulla Morale Cattolica," written in re- 
ply to Sismondi's charges against the morality of Roman 

* Mandement pour la Publication de Jubile, 15 Nov., 1724. But 
the doctrines of the eloquent Bishop of Clermont may be seen at 
large in his Instruction sur le Jubiie ; one sentence of which will 
show to what conceptions of the nature of God, to what practical and 
revolting heathenism, even good men are led by the teachings of the 
Roman Church. " Ah! l'Eglise autrefois elle-meme, plus indulgente 
sans doute que le Dieu terrible, puisqu'elle n'etoit occupee qu'a l'a- 
paiser, qu'a adoucir par les rigueurs canoniques la sentence du sou- 
verain Juge, et qu'elle ne punissoit ses enfaus que comme une mere; 
TEglise elle-meme, pour un seul crime, imposoit autrefois de longues 
annees de travaux et de penitence." 



218 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

doctrine, in the " History of the Italian Republics ," Man- 
zoni says, " Dire che le Indulgenze ottengono la remis- 
sione della pena, senza la conversione del cuore, e la bra- 
ma di soddisfare, e empieta, che, grazie al Cielo, non e 
insegnato da alcuno nella Chiesa." * " To say that In- 
dulgences obtain the remission of punishment, unless 
there be conversion of the heart, and desire to make sat- 
isfaction, is an impiety which, thanks be to Heaven, is 
taught by no one in the Church.'' Such is unquestiona- 
bly the case. The teaching of the authorities of the 
Church is now uniform upon this point. The enlight- 
ened Catholic receives indulgence as a gift which is to be 
gained only by sincere repentance, by leaving and utterly 
casting off his sins. Indulgence is to him as the manifest 
proof of the grace of God, ever ready to welcome back 
the prodigal with full forgiveness ; and all the sweet 
parables of the mercy of the Lord seem concentrated into 
a personal experience by means of this consoling testi- 
mony of pardon. The Church assures him of that for- 
giveness which he has been taught to seek through her. 
The Church stands between him and God. And here 
lies the chief evil of this doctrine in its application to the 
better sort of men. It substitutes a material and visible 
form for a spiritual condition. It withdraws the imagina- 
tion from the things of the Spirit. It conforms to the 
tendency of human weakness to draw God down to itself, 
instead of lifting itself to God. It interferes with the 
close relation of the soul and its Father, and mediates be- 
tween them as if they were or could be parted. 
* Cap. XL DelU * 



ROME. 219 

But the second aspect under which the practical results 
of this doctrine exhibit themselves is even more conclu- 
sive against it. The teaching of the Church is not in the 
hands of careful thinkers alone, and of those who are 
called authorities, anxious to preserve its doctrines from 
abuse. The teachers it employs are not all Bossuets and 
Massillons, but far more generally men of imperfect edu- 
cation, and elevated only by the title of Priest above the 
common run of men. The abuses of doctrine often tend 
to the advantage of ecclesiastics. The poor and the ig- 
norant receive little instruction which may enable them 
to attain even that moderate degree of spiritual enlight- 
enment by which they might gain a true comprehension 
of the conditions attached to indulgences. It is not to be 
disputed that the mass of the people in Rome, who seek 
and suppose themselves to acquire indulgences, have a 
very imperfect notion of the nature of penitence. It 
is generally supposed to be a state of regret for past 
sin, — not a determination to depart from sin in future. 
An indulgence wipes out the temporal penalty of past 
sin, — and practically it is too often considered as a good 
starting-point for the commission of sin, which may, in its 
turn, be confessed, repented of, and easily expiated. 
With many, an indulgence is an indulgence to sin. This 
is deplored by enlightened Catholics themselves. And 
no one can be well acquainted with the condition of the 
lower classes in Italy, without seeing that the system of 
indulgences has a direct tendency to weaken the sense of 
moral obligation, to confuse the popular notions of Divine 
justice, to destroy purity of heart, and to promote a gen- 
eral immorality. 



220 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Eome, 5th January, 1857. 

The gardens attached to the Vatican palace have but 
little beauty at this season. There is an utter want of 
taste in the manner in which they are laid out ; and as 
gardens, they are on a level with the palace as a palace. 
They contain some interesting pieces of ancient sculpture ; 
but the object of chief interest within them is the pine- 
cone of bronze which was originally on the summit of 
Hadrian's Mausoleum, which was afterwards placed as 
an ornament in front of the old basilica of St. Peter, 
and which, on the rebuilding of the church, was re- 
moved to the place it now occupies in the quiet garden 
of the Belvedere. It is one of the few objects in Rome 
which Dante has commemorated. He saw it when it be- 
longed to the church ; for he says that the face of the 
giant Nimrod seemed to him as long and large as the 
pine-cone of St. Peter's at Eome.* 

The gardens are inhabited by a race of shuffling, per- 
tinacious old gardeners, of the same nature as the guar- 
dians of the sculpture gallery, save that their hands are 
dirty with earth and snuff, instead of with snuff and dust. 
There is also here a tribe of cats, — black, black-and- 
white, brown, gray, tortoise-shell, yellow, — some half- 
asleep in the sun on the terrace, some snarling at each 
other, some prowling through the hedges, some rubbing 
themselves against broken marbles, some licking them- 
selves into comfortable sleekness, and some hiding in 
holes in the walls. My theory concerning their exist- 
ence is, that they are cardinals transmigrated, — cardinals 

* Inferno, xxxi. 59. 



ROME. 221 

of the tabby order, — some with claws sheathed, some 
with backs up and claws out, some lazy and well fed, 
some winking and dozing here as of old on the benches 
of the Sistine Chapel, some with half-shut wily eyes, — 
all transformed to the similitude of what they were. 
There is a sly Dominican in his black-and-white robes, 
and by his side a dirty-brown Capuchin, — and there is a 
demure black Jesuit lying asleep with one eye open. 
Such is the transmigration of the souls of cardinals ! 



Rome, 6th January, 1857. The Epiphany. 
Instead of going to the Ara Celi to see the procession 
of the Bambino, the pleasant-looking but dirty crowd, 
the bad monks, and the curious exhibition of superstition 
and credulity on the part of the performers and the spec- 
tators, I went to San Luigi de' Francesi, to hear a 
French preacher who has been attracting large audiences 
for the past fortnight, and who, to-day, was to deliver his 
last sermon, before his return to Paris. He is the Pere 
Petitot, and he is said to be of most holy life. He is the 
present head, as I am told, of the Oratorians in France, 
an order based on the rule of San Filippo Neri, with 
certain modifications in discipline. The audience was a 
very large one, consisting mostly of French residents in 
Rome, French soldiers, and other strangers. There 
were few Romans present. The preacher had, obvious- 
ly, heard that many Protestants had been attracted to 
hear him ; and on entering the pulpit, he began his dis- 
course by saying that he regarded this as the most im- 



222 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

portant occasion on which he had spoken from that 
place, — that he was about to preach on some of the dif- 
ferences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and, in 
doing so, to address the heart rather than to exercise, the 
reason. His voice was sweet, its tones full of pathos, 
and his manner direct and earnest. Before beginning, 
he said he desired to pray, and to have his hearers join 
him in prayer, for the blessing of Heaven upon his words, 
— upon which, the people knelt upon the pavement, and 
for a moment engaged in prayer. He then said that the 
main purpose of his sermon would be to present the con- 
solations possessed by the Catholic in his religion, of 
which the Protestant was deprived ; that he should do 
this in the spirit of love and charity, — for that without 
love no soul was ever won, no true convert ever made, — 
and that, if the heart were rendered bitter by one who 
desired to bring it to God, his work was not only vain, 
but unchristian. Then he began. 

" Think, in the first place, mes tres chers freres, of 
what surpassing consolation those who do not share in 
the Catholic faith are deprived, in not having the pres- 
ence of our Lord in the Eucharist ! We receive him 
bodily there ; we know him to be there, as we know 
him to be in heaven ; he is close to us, — in our com- 
pany ; he lives with us in real presence, as he lived 
with his apostles." He then went on to speak of the 
Protestant being without the consolation of a spiritual 
father and guide upon earth, possessed by those within 
the Church who rested upon his counsels and listened 
to his voice with the conviction of its absolute authority 



ROME. 223 

and truth ; without the consolation of those blessed gifts 
of the Church, confession and absolution, so that they 
can never know that their penitence is accepted and their 
sins forgiven ; without the consolations afforded by the 
Blessed Virgin, without a Mother in heaven, unto whose 
tender heart her children can always come to repose, 
who comforts them in their sorrows, and whose prayers 
and tears are always interceding for them ; without the 
Saints, so that they have no communion with holy spir- 
its, and are under the care of no holy protectors, — " not 
supported, as we are, by the living and acting presence of 
the martyrs and saints of all ages." " Take from the 
Sister of Charity her rosary, her Virgin, and her Saints, 
and see what she would become ! " Without belief in a 
guardian angel ; — " and what a belief, rich in consola- 
tion and delight, is this, — to be accompanied through life 
by a celestial friend ! Before I came here this afternoon, 
I prayed to my guardian angel to direct me in what I 
should speak ; I feel his presence with me. I prayed to 
the guardian angels of those who hear me that they 
should cause my words to reach hearts made ready to 
receive them.' 5 Without the consolation of praying for 
the dead ; so that the memory of the dead is desolate. 
And without the consolation of the crucifix and the wor- 
ship of the cross. " Ah ! mes tres chers freres, what a 
joy has the Christian in his crucifix ! — to hold your dy- 
ing Saviour in your hand, to look on your God face to 
face, to press him to your heart, to bathe him with your 
tears, to speak to him, to kiss those beloved features, and 
to feel his love enter into your heart with a kiss ! Ah ! 



224 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

dear brothers who are not Catholics, let me implore you 
to get for yourselves a crucifix, to gaze upon it, to bear it 
with you, to place it on your pillows, and to see if my 
words are not true, of the strength, the happiness, the 
consolation it will give you ! " 

After preaching for an hour in this strain, with many 
passages made eloquent by the fervor of his feeling, as 
well as by skilful oratory, he said, — "I have one word 
to say before I conclude, one word of logic, the only one 
in my discourse. If, as I have declared, and as all 
Catholics will declare with me, these consolations of 
which I have spoken are the most precious that our re- 
ligion affords us, — if they are what most raise and rejoice 
our souls, — if they are to us the very essence of spir- 
itual life on earth, — then I say that they are of God, 
they are not man's inventions. It is not possible for 
man to surpass God Himself in those things which are 
the best that religion brings to us. All our happiness is 
from God ; and because these are our choicest blessings, 
we know them to be from Him." 

It was dark before the Pere Petitot had ended his ser- 
mon ; but the congregation had stayed, listening with the 
utmost attention. It was thought a very beautiful and 
very powerful discourse. It certainly afforded a remark- 
able illustration of the prevailing tendency in Catholicism 
to materialize the immaterial, and to substitute the Church 
for the Gospel. The step from such a sermon as this to 
the worship of the Bambino, or to any lower and more 
superstitious observance, if any such there be, is but a 
short one. Yet it is not to be doubted that Pere Petitot 



ROME. 225 

laments the errors of such superstitious observances, and 
is a devout, and what would be called an enlightened 
Catholic. 

Rome, 20th January, 1857. 

, the German sculptor, who has been long in 

Rome, told, the other day, a story which illustrates well 
the mode in which small affairs are managed here. In 
1849, in the course of some excavations on the Vicolo 
delle Palme, in Trastevere, the bronze head of a horse, 
now in the Capitol Museum, was discovered, and with it 
the magnificent statue of the Athlete scraping himself 
w r ith a Strigil, which is in the Braccio Nuovo at the Vat- 
ican. One or two fragments of other works were found 
at the same time, and, as the grounds of the Anician 
family had once occupied this portion of the city, it was 
reasonably believed that further excavations would bring 
to light other precious works of Art. The government 
proposed to purchase the land, but the owners, stimulated 
by the discoveries already made, asked a price which was 
considered exorbitant, and the government declined to go 
on with the bargain. The owners determined to continue 
the excavations on their owm account, but the authorities 
at once laid an interdict on their proceeding. If the 
government could not have the land, they could at least 
prevent its being dug over ! And so the matter has stood 
up to the present time. After a statue has been buried 
a thousand years or more, it matters, perhaps, but little 
to it that it should lie underground ten or twenty years 
longer ; but it is of some consequence to the lovers of Art 
15 



226 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

of this generation whether it be kept hidden from them 
or not. The chance of finding a statue after Lysippus is 
not to be slighted. This Strigilatore is supposed to be 
a copy in marble of the famous bronze statue by that 
sculptor, which was set up by Agrippa before his Baths 
near the Pantheon, and which was so much admired by 
Tiberius, that, shortly after he became emperor, he caused 
it to be removed to his bed-room, and another statue to 
be put in its place. But at this, the indignation of the 
Romans was aroused, and, with great clamor, they de- 
manded that their favorite statue should be restored to 
them, and Tiberius was forced to yield it up, quanquam 
adamatum.* 

That other relics of ancient Art, of equal worth with 
this, might be found in the same locality is no extrava- 
gant supposition. " The marbles of the Anician palace," 
says Gibbon, " were used as a proverbial expression of 
opulence and splendor." f From the reign of Diocletian 
to the fall of the Western Empire, the Anician family 
was unsurpassed among the great houses of Rome, in 
wealth and in reputation, — and its glory expired only 
with the death of Boethius, the last famous descendant 
of the long line of Senators and Consuls. 

Modern Rome is built upon ruins. What war and fire 
and the ravages of barbarian conquerors left of ancient 
splendor, the Romans themselves, still more barbarian, — 
people, princes, and popes, — have conspired to destroy. 

* Pliny, Nat Hist., Lib. XXXIV. xix. 12. The statue was then 
known under the name of the Apoxyomenos. 
t Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. 31. 



ROME. 227 

V 

Nicholas V. pulled down the magnificent tomb of one of 
the greatest of the Anician family, which stood in his 
way upon the Vatican, and only the memory of its in- 
scriptions and its sculptures is preserved in the dry pages 
of the ecclesiastical annalist. Beneath the very pave- 
ment of the streets and squares of Rome lie buried treas- 
ures of Art. The words which Cicero uses, in speaking 
of the city, have now a double meaning : u Quacumque 
enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium poni- 
musr " Which way soever we walk, we set our foot 
upon some history." It was but the other day, that, as I 
was watching the men digging a trench for the gas-pipes 
near the Fountain of Trevi, I saw them turn up a hand- 
ful of rust-eaten Imperial coins. In excavating for the 
foundation of the new column in the Piazza di Spagna, 
the bust of a Dacian king was found, which, after its long 
interment, is now placed on show in the Vatican Gallery. 
Of the host of ancient statues and works in marble in the 
museums, almost all have been discovered underground. 
The bosom of the earth has been, and is still, the great 
storehouse of sculpture. Happily, an interdict cannot be 
laid on all digging. The Roman gardeners, in making 
their trenches for cabbages or cauliflowers, will still find 
some long-hidden marble or turn up some broken inscrip- 
tion. Or, if digging be stopped, the rains will do a par- 
tial work. It was on New Year's day, as I was walking 
toward Rome from the Torre de' Schiavi, — near which 
I had been picking up bits of the ancient mosaic of the 
Gordian villa, laid bare by the late rains, — that I saw 
by the side of the road, half- washed out of the bank, a 



228 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

bit of white marble. I took it up, and found that it was 
part of the leg of an old statue ; and a few steps farther 
on, seeing a flat piece of statuary marble lying in the 
cart-track by the side of the main road, I turned it over, 
and found on its under side a portion of a bas-relief of 
Leda, not unskilfully worked. Such discoveries as these 
— worth much to one who comes from a land whose soil 
is barren in carved stones — will be made by every one 
who frequents the Campagna. My table is already 
loaded with bits of marble, pieces of inscriptions, frag- 
ments of brick ornament, and parcels of mosaic, that I 
have picked up in the fields, on my walks during this 
last month. 

There is many a wall in Rome made of old mate- 
, rials strangely joined together, — bits of ancient bricks 
stamped with a Consular date, pieces of the shaft of some 
marble column, fragments of serpentine, or even of giallo 
antico, that once made part of the polished pavement of 
a palace, — now all combined in one strange harmony by 
Nature, who seems to love these walls, and to reclaim 
them to herself by tinting their various blocks with every 
hue of weather-stain, and han^ino; over them her loveliest 
draperies of wall-flower and mosses. In one of the pre- 
cepts of his " Trattato della Pittura," Leonardo da Vinci 
says, " Se riguarderai in alcuni muri imbrattati, o pietre 
di varii mischi, potrai quivi vedere 1' inventione e similitu- 
dine di diversi paesi, diverse battaglie, atti pronti di figu- 
re, strane arie di volti ed habiti, ed infinite altre cose." 
" If thou wilt look at old stained walls r or at stones vari- 
ously mixed together, thou shalt see on them the sugges- 



ROME. 229 

tion and similitude of landscapes, of battles, of lively 
actions of figures, of strange aspects of face and dress, 
and numberless other things." Nor thus are the sugges- 
tions of the Roman walls exhausted. The landscapes 
which the fancy discovers on them are of the Campagna 
before it was desolate ; the battles which one sees are 
those in which the statues were hurled down, whose 
broken fragments are built into the wall ; and the lively 
actions and strange aspects which the wandering lines of 
rain and the cracking heats of the sun have traced for 
the imagination upon the stones seem those of the foreign 
conquerors and the frightened people in wnose struggles 
Rome was ruined. The whole history of the decline and 
fall of the city is to be read in these unconsciously mon- 
umental walls. Out of the chance materials that offered 
to his hand, the ignorant bricklayer has built up many 
a memorial, on which is recorded, not in words, the for- 
tunes of the Roman State. There is no end to the 
stories on these walls. All the strange things they have 
heard, the whispers, the sighs, the screams, the crackling 
of fire, the shouts of soldiers, the sobs, the prayers, — all, 
" and numberless other things," are to be found in their 
stones, and, as Leonardo goes on to say, " by these con- 
fused things the fancy is roused to new inventions." 



Rome, 20th February, 1857. 
The cheap literature of Rome all passes, previously to 
its publication, under priestly supervision. Indeed, no 
book, no pamphlet, no placard is printed at Rome with- 



230 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

out the ecclesiastical imprimatur. Books cannot be 
entirely done away with ; but the evil consequences re- 
sulting from unlicensed printing may be diminished ; and 
to this beneficent end the Church bends her powers, and 
suppresses, alters, blots out whatever may lead her sub- 
jects astray. It is a common story, that the man who 
lights the cross on St. Peter's dome, on occasion of the 
illumination, receives absolution before setting about his 
dangerous task. It may be hoped, that, with some equal 
provision of mercy, the Church protects those of her cen- 
sors whom she employs to detect what is bad in books, 
and who thus generously peril their own salvation for the 
sake of the common safety. The " Athenaeum " came to 
us the other day with the article on Milman's " History 
of Latin Christianity " carefully blotted out ; from the 
" Revue des Deux Mondes " of the fifteenth of January, 
the article on " Italie : Son Avenir," etc., is gone ; and 
from the " Revue " of the first of February three leaves 
are cut out of the middle of Montegut's article on Miche- 
let. This care in regard to what is read and what is not 
read by the Romans gives special interest to certain 
classes of books which are permitted, inasmuch as they 
may be regarded as containing such views, opinions, and 
statements as are deemed to be of importance to the peo- 
ple, or at least to have no vital error and no evil tendency. 
One of these classes of books, and perhaps the one which 
has the greatest popularity, is the literature relating to 
the saints and to miracles. It takes much the same 
place as the literature of quack medicines with us, — 
its aim being similar, and its appeals being addressed 



ROME. 231 

to that large body in every community who have more 
credulity than sense. The art of puffing a saint or a 
miraculous image for the celerity and variety of the 
cures effected by them has been carried to a high de- 
gree of excellence by the authors of these works. 

I have here a little yellow-covered pamphlet, called 
" Historic Notices of the Most Holy Mary of the Child, 
venerated in S. Augustine at Rome." It was published 
in 1853, and is a fair specimen of its class. The statue 
which is the object of veneration stands near the main 
entrance to the church. It derives its name of Santis- 
sima Maria del Parto from the fact that it represents the 
Virgin seated with the Child standing upon her lap. Its 
origin is uncertain, but it is commonly attributed to the 
chisel of the Florentine sculptor, Giacomo Tatti, who 
assumed the name of Sansovino in honor of his master, 
and who died in 1570. The opinion of those who regard 
this work as being a likeness of Agrippina with the 
young Nero in her arms is considered to be ill founded. 
It appears that for many years this statue had received 
only that general regard which all images of the Virgin 
receive in greater or less degree from Roman worship- 
pers, until, in 1820, a devout youth proposed to set up a 
lamp to burn before it day and night, and paid the sacris- 
tan of the church a haiocco and a half a day to keep it 
well supplied with oil. Others of the faithful soon imi- 
tated the example of this good youth, and the piety of the 
common people who attended the services of the church 
was speedily awakened toward the statue by the number 
of lamps and candles burning around it. The feeling 



232 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

thus aroused was soon quickened into enthusiastic devo- 
tion bj the report of miracles wrought through the inter- 
cession of the Virgin here worshipped. Crowds gathered 
round the marvel-working statue. Many persons dipped 
their fingers into the oil of the open lamps, regarding it as 
of sacred virtue ; and the drapery of the figure became so 
dirtied by the dripping of the oil, that the guardians of 
the church were obliged to interfere, to regulate the num- 
ber of lamps that should be burned, and to suspend them 
beyond the reach of the worshippers. But in order that 
such piety should not be frustrated, bits of cotton soaked 
in the oil and wrapped in paper were provided for 
sale to the devout. Votive tablets commemorative of 
cures and deliverance were hung around, and offerings 
of money, either in gratitude for favors received or to 
purchase such favors as prayers would not obtain, were 
laid before the Virgin, until at length it was thought fit to 
place a money-box near the statue for the reception of 
these offerings. This gave rise to suspicions, which are 
declared to have been unjust, of the desire of the Augus- 
tinians to make money for themselves out of their good- 
fortune in having so powerful a statue, — but, in spite of 
the calumny, the money-box was not removed. So great 
were the crowds, and so noisy in their cries to the Virgin, 
that scandal followed, and the church was the scene of 
many irreverent displays, until the modes of worship 
were at length properly regulated. 

Meanwhile frequent acts of grace exerted by the Vir- 
gin strengthened the reverence in which the statue was 
held. The first case narrated at length is that of Ger- 



ROME. 233 

trade Palombi, a girl of nineteen years old, who, after 
Ions; suffering from an aneurism and inflammation of the 
lungs, having been brought to death's door and given 
over by the physicians, was suddenly restored by being 
anointed with oil from the lamps. The medical details 
of her case are given at great length, and are followed, 
in the usual place of the medical certificate, by a Latin 
decree of the Vicariate, declaring the miraculous nature 
of the cure. 

The next is a still more remarkable case, owing to the 
peculiar complication of disorders from which the patient 
suffered, — namely, extreme pains in the stomach, an 
enormous tumor on the shoulder, sciatica, convulsions, 
swelling of the limbs, hemicrania, fever, paralysis, and 
lockjaw ! So near had she approached to death, that the 
parish priest was sent for to administer the last offices 
of the Church. But the girl had committed herself to 
Maria del Parto, a picture of whose image was hanging 
by her bedside, and at this last moment she was anointed 
by her faithful attendants with oil from the lamps. She 
at once fell quietly asleep, and when she awoke she de- 
clared that the Madonna, such as she was seen in the 
church of * St. Augustine, had appeared to her, and with 
her own hand had anointed her with oil. At the same 
moment all her diseases left her ; she rose cured from 
her bed, and the next day proceeded to the church, ac- 
companied by her relations and friends, to render thanks 
for so signal a grace. A process was instituted to inves- 
tigate the case, and in 1827 a decree was issued by the 
Cardinal Vicar, of which the following is a portion 



234 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

" Itaque, audita relatione, viso processu, lectis testium 
examinibus, juribus et documentis, iis sedulo matureque 
consideratis, consultationibus quoque requisitis theologo- 
rum, medici physici deputati, aliorumque virorum, juxta 
formam Sac. Cone. Trident, sess. 25, de invocat. venerat., 
et reliquiis sanctorum, et sacris imaginibus, diximus, pro- 
nuntiavimus, et definitive declaravimus, plene constare de 
vero insignique miraculo a Deo opt. maximo, intercedente 
Beata Maria Virgine, patrato, videlicet, instantaneae per- 
fectaeque sanationis Constantiae Tondini a multiplici gra- 
vissimorum ac diutumorum morborum congerie, qui earn 
ad obi turn trahebant, cum integra virium restitutione, nul- 
loque crisis interventu." The authority appointed for 
the purpose, and speaking with all the weight of infalli- 
bility, thus declared that a true and wonderful miracle 
had been wrought, and an order was given that the rela- 
tion of this miracle should receive the widest publicity. 

So formal a confirmation of the virtue of this image 
naturally increased the reverence in which it was held, 
and numerous wonders followed rapidly from the trust 
reposed in the Virgin represented by it. Many of them 
are reported at length. One more is, perhaps, worth 
repeating here, because of a different kind from those 
which precede. Vincenzo di Gennaro had fallen asleep 
one summer's night, when a spark from the lamp burn- 
ing by his bedside fell upon his clothes, which were lying in 
a heap on a chair. Flames were quickly kindled. " In 
a moment," says the account, " they would have seized 
the bed and devoured it, together with him who lay on it, 
sleeping in ignorance of his danger of being stifled and 



ROME. 235 

burned before he was aware ; when all of a sudden a 
shake from an invisible hand awoke him. lie leaped 
from the bed, beheld the flames, and succeeded in extin- 
guishing them. His clothes were in ashes, — all burned, 
save the pocket of Ins waistcoat, in which was a paper 
containing a rag that had been dipped in the oil of the 
Madonna del Parto, — a substance most prone to com- 
bustion. He recognized the double favor of the Ma- 
donna, in arousing him, and in preserving him unhurt by 
the fire, by means of the marvellous oil ! " 

After the narrative of wonders has extended over 
many pages, the reader is called upon to admire the 
innumerable gifts which have been made to the image, 
and to regard them as proofs of the efficacy of the inter- 
cession of the Virgin worshipped under it. The gifts 
show that avarice yields to gratitude. Rich and poor 
have equally brought their offerings. Queen Maria 
Christina of Spain has bestowed a great chain of gold, 
and the wealthy Torlonias have presented many mag- 
nificent ornaments. Necklaces, bracelets, diamonds, and 
other precious stones attest the devotion or the hopes of 
their givers. The familiar definition of gratitude may be 
supposed to hold good in many of these cases. " Behold 
hung around, in silver and in gold, hearts, arms, legs, 
hands, feet, eyes, ears, and the rest, — and on all thou 
wilt read P. G. R., — Per Grazia Ricevuta : For 
Favor Received." 

To such fame did the statue rise, that, in 1851, by a 
solemn decree of the Chapter of St. Peter, it was or- 
dained that it should receive the honor of a coronation, 



236 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the final and highest testimony of the Church to its 
miraculous virtues. The services connected with this 
ceremonial were performed by illustrious cardinals, with 
great pomp, with the bestowal of plenary indulgence, and 
with general rejoicing and concourse of the faithful. A 
golden crown was placed on the head of the Virgin, and 
another on that of her Son, on the festival of the Visita- 
tion. Since that time these wonders have not ceased. 

Such is a specimen of the art of puffing, as practised 
at Eome. The difference between the quacks of the 
Papal city and those of Protestant countries is that of 
their professions. The ecclesiastical is more dangerous 
than the medical impostor. 

I would not be understood as implying that many of 
the cases reported in this class of publications are not 
reported truly. The influence of imagination is undoubt- 
edly one of the great curative powers, and faith in reme- 
dies is one of the frequent precursors of recovery. 
Imposture and credulity, it was long ago remarked, go 
hand in hand. It was one of Lord Bacon's shrewd ob- 
servations, that, " although they appear to be of a diverse 
nature, the one seeming to proceed of cunning and the 
other of simplicity, yet certainly they do for the most 
part concur." Nor would I be understood as asserting 
that the processes of examination adopted in regard to 
the evidence of these marvels, before the dogmatic sanc- 
tion of them as miracles, were careless, hasty, or un- 
fair. I have no doubt that the testimony to the facts 
was ample, consistent, and honest. But there are con- 
ditions of belief, resulting from education and preposses- 



ROME. 237 

sion, which may affect the value of men's testimony 
upon large classes of subjects, — which may, indeed, ren- 
der their testimony utterly worthless, without affecting its 
sincerity. 

But that such a state of things should exist at the 
present time in Rome is a proof of the continuance there 
of what we are apt to suppose ceased with the Middle 
Ages, — that condition of general belief, and those men- 
tal habits, which gave to those ages their common appel- 
lation of Dark. The Roman people belong to the Dark 
Ages. Even Bacon, writing more than two centuries 
ago, in a passage in the " Advancement of Learning " 
which follows close on the sentence just quoted, could 
speak of the " too easily received and registered reports 
and narrations of miracles " wrought by saints, relics, or 
images, as already passed. They had " had passage 
for a time, by the ignorance of the people, the supersti- 
tious simplicity of some, and the politic toleration of 
others, holding them but as divine poesies ; yet, after a 
period of time, when the mist began to clear up, they 
grew to be esteemed but as old wives' fables, impostures 
of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges of Antichrist, 
to the great scandal and detriment of religion." 

The earnestness with which miraculous intervention is 
sought, the confidence in its frequent occurrence, and the 
ease with which stories of miracles are received, are 
proofs not merely of the prevalence of superstition and 
false notions of the nature of God, but also of a state 
of general opinion in which the usual laws of probabil- 
ity as applied to evidence no longer hold good. In a 



238 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

state of society in which miracles are expected to be of 
not infrequent occurrence, and where the antecedent im- 
probability of such an event has no weight in determin- 
ing the final judgment in regard to an interruption of the 
common courses of Nature, no amount of common human 
testimony would be sufficient to establish the fact of a 
miracle. Where miracles are expected, events which 
bear enough of their external characteristics to be 
mistaken for them by the mass of the people will be 
easily met with. That a man believes a miracle to have 
taken place in himself is no proof that one has actually 
taken place. Few men are able to trace the causes of 
effects in their physical system, — still fewer in their 
mental processes and their spiritual experiences.* The 
whole history of Revivals — a history which painfully 
exhibits the lowness of the religious spirit and character 
of many Protestant communities — is full of instances of 

* In that most confidential of books, The Diary of Mr. Samuel 
Pepys, its excellent author makes the following entry, under date of 
20th January, 1664-5: " Homeward, in my way buying a hare, and 
taking it home ; which arose upon my discourse to-day with Mr. Bat- 
ten, in Westminster Hall, who showed me my mistake, that my hare's 
foot hath not the joint to it, and assures me he never had his cholique 
since he carried it about him ; and it is a strange thing how fancy 
works, for I no sooner handle his foot, but I become very well, and so 
continue." 

The next day he writes, — " Now mighty well ; and truly I can but 
impute it to my hare's foot." 

And on the 26th of March following, he enters upon his journal, 

— "I never was better in my life Now I am at a loss to know 

whether it be my hare's foot which is my preservation; for I never 
had a fit of the collique since I wore it; or whether it be my taking 
of a pill of turpentine every morning." 



ROxME. 239 

imperceptible causes working the most extraordinary 
results. But because the natural causes cannot be dis- 
covered, it is not therefore to be argued that they are 
supernatural. Such, however, is the popular mode of 
reasoning, among the ignorant ; it is the mode among the 
Romans. From their infancy, the Romans are taught to 
believe that the Virgin and the Saints are not only their 
spiritual consolers and guides, but protectors from earth- 
ly perils, healers of bodily maladies, and guardians of 
worldly goods. Two plain results follow from this, — 
superstitious devotion, and blasphemous irreverence. 
The Virgin and the Saints who fail to answer the pray- 
ers that are made tQ them are cursed with a heartiness 
proportioned to the fervor of the previous petition. 

It is not difficult to see to what advantage such a spirit 
may be turned by the priests. There are many good 
priests in Rome, — but not all are good. Where super- 
stition prevails, the offerings to the Church will be large. 
Fear and hope open all purses. 

It is not strange that the censorship is strict, nor that 
it allows such publications as the account of the Madonna 
del Parto to circulate freely. 



Rome, 7th February, 1857. 
This afternoon, Dr. Manning, formerly so well known 
in the English Church as Archdeacon Manning, delivered 
the first of a course of three sermons, at San Carlo al 
Corso. He is a man of tall and striking presence, with 
an intellectual head, dark eyes, and the look of an as- 



240 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

cetic. His personal influence is great, and his reputation 
at Rome very high. The church was filled with a large 
audience. Before the service, I copied the following in- 
scription from an altar in the right aisle : " Ogni volta che 
in questo altare, dedicato alia B ma Vergine, sara offerto 
il santo sacrifizio della Messa per 1' anima di qualsivoglia 
fedele, Innocenzo XI. P. M. ha conceduto che venga essa 
liberata dalle pene del Purgatorio." " Every time that on 
this altar, dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin, the holy 
sacrifice of the Mass shall be offered for the soul of any 
faithful [Catholic], by concession of Pope Innocent XL, 
that soul shall be freed from the pains of Purgatory." 
This inscription was a favorable introduction to the 
sermon, which was on the honor and worship due to the 
Virgin as the Mother of God. Dr. Manning's simple 
and finished manner, his careful and occasionally poetic 
diction, his quiet fervor, and his fine voice, give him un- 
common power as a pulpit orator. His style of thought 
is subtle, he is an acute pleader, and he makes much use 
of the forms of logical reasoning. " In strictest truth," 
is a phrase which he frequently uses. There was, how- 
ever, no attempt in his discourse to avoid those doctrines 
of the Church which are most repugnant to reason and 
most contrary to Christianity. He spoke of the Eucha- 
rist as " the real, actual, living, breathing, palpable pres- 
ence of the Lord." He spoke of the deification of the 
Saints. " Do not startle," said he, " at the word ; it be- 
longs to them by participation in the nature of Jesus 
Christ." He argued, that, as the Virgin was the mother 
of Christ, and Christ had called us his brethren, she was 



ROME. 241 

our actual mother. He urged that she deserved repara- 
tion for the past neglect with which she had been treated, 
and for the scoffs of those who did not honor her. He 
declared that the Church had not pronounced the doc- 
trine of the Immaculate Conception to be true ; but that 
it announced this dogma as revealed from Heaven, 
through the Divine Spirit which dwells always infallible 
in it. " I know," said he, " that it is often objected that 
there is very little about all this in the Gospels. Very 
little of this in the Gospels ? In a spark that darts from 
a burning mass there is the whole essence of fire. If 
there were but one word in the Gospels concerning the 
Blessed Virgin, in that word would be concentrated the 
whole force and spirit of the New Testament. If I 
found only the words, ' And the mother of Jesus was 
there,' I should find enough to learn devotion, rever- 
ence, and worship for her. I do not forget that Origen 
has said, ' No man can understand the spirit of the gos- 
pel who has not, like the Apostle John, lain on the bosom 
of his Lord, and had the., mother of his Lord given to 
him for a mother.' " The use of this passage was skilful 
and eloquent. Throughout the sermon there were many 
sentences of great beauty. One expression struck me 
as remarkably fine : — " The affections have & federal na- 
ture ; you cannot love the Lord and not love what he 
loves." 

Rome, 10th February, 1857. 
It is one of Montaigne's claims to affection, that he 
loved Rome so well. He was a member of a greater 

16 



242 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

church than the one which calls itself Catholic, — for he 
belonged to that inclusive church of the Independents in 
which have been numbered many Romanists, in spite of 
councils, synods, and decrees. How delightful is what 
he says of Rome ! " Rome, as it stands now, deserveth 
to be loved, — being the only common and universal 
city. . . . Both French and Spaniards, and all men else, 
are there at home. To be a prince of that state, a man 
needs but be of Christendom, wherever it be seated. 
There's no place here on earth which the heavens have 
embraced with such influence of favors and grace, and 
with such constancy. Even her ruin is glorious with 
renown and swollen with glory." And as one walks up 
and down the Roman streets, it is pleasant and cheering 
to remember his adoption by the city, and how he says, 
that, " amongst the vain favors of Fortune, I have none 
doth so much please my fond, self-pleasing conceit, as an 
authentic bull, charter, or patent of denizenship or bur- 
gesship of Rome, which, at my last being there, was 
granted me by the whole Senate of that city, — garish, 
and trimly adorned with goodly seals, and written in fair 
golden letters, bestowed upon me with all gracious and 
free liberality." 

It was in 1581 that he was thus made citizen of 
Rome ; and the fact was recalled to me to-day by see- 
ing in the "Index of Prohibited Books " the following 
entry, which still prevents his writings from having that 
freedom of the city which was bestowed upon their au- 
thor : — 

" De Montaigne Michel. Les Essais. Deer. 12 Junii, 1676.' ' 



ROME. 243 

Another instance of prohibition, carious from circum- 
stances connected with the book itself, is that of Bacon's 
treatise, " De Augmentis Scientiarum." This work is in 
great part only a translation into Latin of "The Advance- 
ment of Learning," which was published some } r ears pre- 
viously. But as in this latter treatise there were many 
passages which might cause some offence to the Roman 
Church, Lord Bacon, desirous to give to his more impor- 
tant thoughts free circulation, carefully altered or omitted 
in the translation all expressions which he supposed could 
excite the active hostility of Rome. In a letter sent to 
King James with the "De Augmentis," he says : "I have 
been also mine own Index Expurgolorius, that it may be 
read in all places. For, since my end of putting it into 
Latin was to have it read everywhere, it had been an 
absurd contradiction to free it in the language and pen it 
up in the matter." Notwithstanding his precautions, 
however, the book was deemed by the ruling powers at 
Rome unfit for their subjects to read ; and, by decree of 
the 3d of April, 16G9, a decree still unrepealed, it was 
put among the prohibited books. 

I have been obliged to send to Florence, this winter, 
for a copy of Martini's translation of the New Testa- 
ment, which is in some sort an authorized Italian version. 
There is a general prohibition in the Index "of all 
versions of the Bible in any vulgar tongue, unless author- 
ized by the Apostolic See, or published with Annota- 
tions taken from the Fathers of the Holy Church, or 
from learned and Catholic men." Among the one hun- 
dred and one propositions condemned as heretical in 



244 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

1713, by Clement XL, in the famous bull, Unigenitus, 
were the two following : " That the reading of the Sacred 
Scripture is for all " ; and " That to interdict to Chris- 
tians the reading of the Sacred Scripture, especially of 
the Gospel, is to interdict the use of light to the sons of 
light, and to make them suffer a kind of excommunica- 
tion." These were heretical propositions. The Church 
declared, and still declares, that the reading of Scripture 
is not for all. But Martini was Archbishop of Florence, 
and too good a churchman to do anything contrary to the 
decrees or the interests of the Church. He accordingly 
accompanied his version of the New Testament with an 
elaborate commentary, to counteract the ill effect that 
might be produced by the perusal of the simple text. 
His work met the approbation of the Pope, Pius VI., 
who, in 1778, granted him a brief expressive of his satis- 
faction in the work. This brief, prefixed to the subse- 
quent editions of the translation, gives to them the high- 
est sanction of the Church. 

But on the 17th of January, 1820, a decree was issued 
by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which contains 
the following words : " Sacra Congregatio . . . habita in 
Palatio Apostolico Quirinali damnavit et damnat, pro- 
scripsit proscribitque, vel alias damnata atque proscripta 
in Indicem Librorum Prohibitorum referri mandavit et 
mandat opera quae sequuntur : Nuovo Testamento secon- 
do la Volgata tradotto in Lingua Italiana da Monsig. An- 
tonio Martini. Livorno, 1818. Idem, Italia, 1817." 

I did not at first know how to account for this condem- 
nation of a book which the Pope had sanctioned; but 



KOME. 245 

having by chance found here in Rome a copy of the pro- 
hibited edition which bears the imprint of Italia, 1817, I 
find that it is a reprint of the text alone, — the Arch- 
bishop's copious notes being omitted. The necessary 
inference from this is, that the meaning which Home 
draws from the Gospels must be taught by commentaries, 
and is undiscoverable by the unassisted reader of the 
text. Nor is it surprising that the pure and simple 
words of the New Testament should be obnoxious to the 
Sacred Congregation, " qui damnavit et damnat, proscrip- 
sit proscribitque Novum Testamentum in lingua Itali- 
ana." One of the notes of the Florentine dignitary will 
show what was lost by the omission of his comments. 
On the words in the nineteenth verse of the sixteenth 
chapter of Matthew, " And I will give unto thee the 
keys," he says, " The keys signify supreme authority 
and power to govern. All that power is, therefore, here 
given to Peter which is necessary for ruling the kingdom 
of Christ, that is, the Church. One act of this supreme 
power is explained in the words which follow, — what- 
soever thou shalt loose, — in which words full power is 
promised to Peter of loosing in general from sins, from 
spiritual penalties, from vows, and from all those things 
from which Christ himself, dwelling upon earth, could 
have loosed men. With the power of loosing that of 
binding is united, that is, of fastening sins, \_di ritenere i 
peccati,~] of punishing men even with spiritual punish- 
ments. This fulness of power is transferred to the suc- 
cessors of Peter, the Roman Popes, according to the doc- 
trine of all times and of all Catholics." 



246 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

It is an old teaching in the Church, that the Commen- 
tators are better than the Text. Luther says somewhere 
in his " Table Talk," that one of the Austin friars in the 
monastery at Erfurt, seeing that he was constantly read- 
ing the Bible, said to him one day, — " Brother Martin, 
what is the Bible ? Let us," said he, " read the ancient 
teachers and fathers, for they have sucked the juice and 
truth out of the Bible. The Bible is the cause of all 
dissension and rebellion." 



Rome, March, 1857. 
On the slope of the Quirinal Hill, in the quiet inclos- 
ure of the convent of St. Catharine of Siena, stands a 
square, brick tower, seven stories high. It is a conspic- 
uous object in any general view of Rome ; for there are 
few other towers so tall, and there is not a single spire or 
steeple in the city. It is the Torre delle Milizie. It was 
begun by Pope Gregory IX., and finished near the end 
of the thirteenth century by his vigorous and warlike 
successor, Boniface VIII. Many such towers were built 
for the purposes of private warfare, in those times when 
the streets of Rome were the fighting-places of its noble 
families ; but this is, perhaps, the only one that now re- 
mains undiminished in height and unaltered in appear- 
ance. It was a new building when Dante visited Rome ; 
and it is one of the very few edifices that still preserve 
the aspect they then presented. The older ruins have 
been greatly changed in appearance, and most of the 
structures of the Middle Ages have disappeared, in the 



ROME. 247 

vicissitudes of the last few centuries. The Forum was 
then filled with a confused mass of ruins and miserable 
dwellings, with no street running through their intri- 
cacies. The Capitol was surrounded with uneven battle- 
mented walls, and bore the character and look of an 
irregular citadel. St. Peter's was a low basilica ; the 
Colosseum had suffered little from the attacks of Popes 
or princes, neither the Venetian nor the Farnese palace 
having as yet been built with stones from its walls ; and 
centuries were still to pass before Michel Angelo, Ber- 
nini, and Borromini were to stamp its present character 
upon the face of the modern city. The siege and burn- 
ing of Rome by Robert Guiscard, in 1084, may be taken 
as the dividing-line between the city of the Emperors 
and the city of the Popes, between ancient and modern 
Rome. But a wide space on either side of this line is 
obscure. The thousand years from the fall of the Em- 
pire to the revival of letters have left little trace of their 
passage either in records or in monuments. A few iso- 
lated characters and events are still held in remem- 
brance ; but even the brilliant years of Rienzi's comet- 
like course show only a narrow track of light, which 
leaves the darkness on each side but more apparent. 

The whole period was one of destruction rather than 
of creation. The buildings of the past were perishing, 
and few new ones were rising to take the place of the 
old. The architecture of the time was almost confined 
to towers and to churches ; but the towers have been 
mostly thrown down, and the churches have been rebuilt, 
modernized, or otherwise defaced, within the last three or 



248 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

four hundred years, so that their original construction is 
in scarcely a single instance to be seen complete. Rome 
was in a state of too deep depression, its people were too 
turbulent and unsettled, to have either the spirit or the 
opportunity for great works. There was no established 
and recognized authority, no regular course of justice. 
There was not even any strong force, rarely any over- 
whelming violence, which for a time at least could sub- 
due opposition, and organize a steady, and consequently 
a beneficent tyranny. The city was continually dis- 
tracted by petty personal quarrels, and by bitter family 
feuds. Its obscure annals are full of bloody civil victo- 
ries and defeats, — victories which brought no gain to 
those who won them, defeats which taught no lesson to 
those who lost them. The breath of liberty never in- 
spired with life the dead clay of Rome ; and though for a 
time it might seem to kindle some vital heat, the glow 
soon grew cold, and speedily disappeared. The records 
of Florence, Siena, Bologna, and Perugia are as full of 
fighting and bloodshed as those of Rome ; but their fights 
were not mere brawls, nor were their triumphs always 
barren. Even the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
which were like the coming of the spring after a long 
winter, making the earth to blossom, and gladdening the 
hearts of men, — the centuries which elsewhere in Italy, 
and over the rest of Europe, gave birth to the noblest 
mediaeval Art, when every great city was adorning itself 
with the beautiful works of the new architecture, sculp- 
ture, and painting, — even these centuries left scarce- 
ly any token of their passage over Rome. The sun, 



ROME. 249 

breaking through the clouds that had long hidden it, 
shone everywhere but here. While Florence was build- 
ing her Cathedral and her Campanile, and Orvieto her 
matchless Duomo, — while Pisa was showing her piety 
and her wealth in her Cathedral, her Camposanto, her 
Baptistery, and her Tower, — while Siena was beginning 
a church greater and more magnificent in design than her 
shifting fortune would permit her to complete, — Rome 
was building neither cathedral nor campanile, but was 
selling the marbles of her ancient temples and tombs to 
the builders of other cities, or quarrying them for her 
own mean uses.* 

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the 
Popes quitted Rome for Avignon, it might have seemed 
as if her fortunes had reached a point of depression from 
which there could be no hope of recovery. But one 
striking feature marked this time, as it did the whole 
period of darkness and evil fortune, — the steady and 
persistent belief of the Romans in the predestined great- 
ness of their city. If she had fallen, she would rise 
again. The contrast of her low estate with her remem- 
bered supremacy only quickened the anticipation of a 
future greatness which would far exceed the past. The 

* " De ipsius vetustatis ac propriae impietatis fragminibus vilem 
questum, turpi mercimonio, captare non puduit," says Petrarch, in 
his Epistola Hortatoria to Rienzi, a letter intended to be read in the full 
assembly of the people. " Indolent Naples is adorned with the mar- 
ble columns from your temples." We have seen that much of the 
marble used in the construction of the Duomo at Orvieto was drawn 
from Rome. This explains its richness in Greek marble. See Papen- 
cordt, Rienzi, et Rome a son Epoque, p. 46. 



250 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Romans looked upon Rome as the Jews regard Jeru- 
salem, and this feeling was shared by the rest of Chris- 
tendom. The tradition of authority remained long after 
the reality had departed, and the mere name of Rome 
exercised control over the imaginations of men. She 
was still esteemed the source of temporal as well as of 
spiritual power upon earth. And as she sat desolate on 
her hills, mumbling over her old spells, the nations still 
bowed down their heads before her. 

Dante and Petrarch, in their various works, afford the 
most ample illustration of the prevalence and depth of 
the conviction that Rome was appointed by divine or- 
dainment to be the centre of power upon earth. It is 
the basis of their political creed, and the ruling motive of 
their public lives. The belief, indeed, affected for centu- 
ries the politics of Europe ; while at Rome itself it was 
clung to, amid all reverses, with superstitious bigotry, 
and cherished with religious zeal. But the Romans 
were characterized by an insolence and indolence quite 
as enduring as their reliance on this article of faith, and, 
leaving Heaven to accomplish in its own way the pre- 
destined glory of the city, they quarrelled among them- 
selves, and carelessly watched or helped the decay of 
Rome. 

Dante's feelings toward Rome were deep and ardent, 
but they were of a double nature. On the one hand was 
the feeling of reverence for its divinely ordered history, 
for its past grandeur, and for the new glory which he 
foresaw in its future ; on the other, was disgust at its 
actual condition, and detestation of the vices of its rulers 



ROME. 251 

and its people.* He closes a chapter of his " Convito," 
in which he has been asserting the miraculous claims of 
Rome to be considered a holy city, with the words, — 
"And truly I am of firm opinion that the stones which 
stand in its walls are worthy of reverence, and the very 
ground on which it sits is worthy beyond that for which 
men praise and commend it." f But in his treatise 
" De Yulgari Eloquio," speaking of the various dialects 
of Italy, he ' declares, with vigorous emphasis, that " the 
common tongue of the Romans, or, more properly, their 
wretched speech, is the basest of all the common tongues 
of Italy ; nor is this strange, since in depravity of man- 
ners and customs they are foulest of all." i 



* buon principio, 
A che vil fine convien che tu caschi ! 
Ma 1' alta providenza che con Scipio 
Difese a Roma la gloria del raondo 
Socorra tosto si com' io concipio. 

Paradiso, xxvii. 59-63. 

f Cbnviio. Trattato iv. cap. 5. In a letter of Petrarch's to Pope 
Urban V., urging him to restore the Papal seat from Avignon to 
Rome, there is a passage of similar character. Consider, he says, 
whether thou preferrest to pass what time is left to thee " at Rome, 
which is the very flesh and blood of the martyrs, {quce tola caro el 
sanguis est martyrum,) or on this rock and in this country of the 
winds where thou now dwellest, — and whether thou dost not desire 
to be buried in the Vatican, which of all places upon our earth is 
without comparison the holiest." Ep. Rer. Sen. vii. 1. — There are 
many other expressions of like feeling to be found in his letters. "He 
who wonders that Rome is esteemed sacred," he says, "is utterly pro- 
fane, and ignorant of sacred things." Apologia, etc. 

X De Vulgari Eloquio, c. xi. 



252 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

So also in various passages of the " Divina Commedia * 
he displays a similar contrast of feeling : — 

" Soleva Roma che il buon mondo feo 
Duo soli aver, die 1' una e V altra strada 
Facen vedere, e del mondo e di Dio." 

Purgatorio, xvi. 106-8. 

"Rome, that turned the world to good, 
Was wont to boast two suns, whose several beams 
Cast light on either way, — the world's and God's." 

Caky. 

And it was this strong sense of the glory of its former 
greatness that deepened the poet's grief at its present 
desolation. In the magnificent invocation to the Em- 
peror Albert, full of earnest and impetuous feeling, he 
bursts forth, — 

" Vieni a veder la tua Roma che piagne, 
Vedova, sola, e dl e notte chiama, 
Cesare mio, perche non m' accompagne?" 

Purgatorio, vi. 112-14. 

" Come and behold thy Rome, who calls on thee, 
Desolate, widowed, day and night, with moans, 
My Caesar, why dost thou desert my side?" 

Cary. 

Thus in his prose and in his poetry may be traced the 
opposition in Dante's mind between the ideal and the 
real Rome, between the Rome of history and prophecy 
and the Rome of his own time.* She was to him the 
most revered city of the imagination, and he regarded 
her with a mingling of love and sad scorn, similar to that 

* See, especially, Paradiso, c. vi. 



ROME. 253 

which, deepened in intensity by personal feeling, he be- 
stowed on his native Florence. In early life, in the nat- 
ural and tender exaggeration of grief at the death of 
Beatrice, he had applied the opening verse of the Lamen- 
tations of Jeremiah to the desolate condition of Florence ; 
in later years, he applied it, with literal directness and 
the sincerity of earnest exhortation, to Rome : " How 
doth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! how is 
she become as a widow ! " 

The number and the periods of Dante's visits to Rome 
are involved in some doubt. That he went there as one 
of the Florentine envoys, not long before his exile, is 
certain ; and it seems likely that the news of the revolu- 
tion, which rendered his return to Florence impossible, 
reached him while he was still in the Papal city. In the 
" Divina Commedia " there are few passages which have 
to do with the outside form and look of Rome. Two 
striking similes, however, are drawn from Roman objects. 
The first is in the description of the Giant Nimrod, of 
whom the poet says, (Inferno, xxxi. 58, 59,) 

" La faccia sua mi parea lunga e grossa 
Come la pina di San Pietro in Eoma." 

" His countenance meseemed long and huge 
As the pine-cone of Peter's Church at Rome." 

This pine-cone, of bronze, was set originally upon the 
summit of the Mausoleum of Hadrian. After this im- 
perial sepulchre had undergone many evil fates, and as 
its ornaments were stripped one by one from it, the cone 
was in the sixth century taken down, and carried off to 



254 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

adorn a fountain, which had been constructed for the use 
of dusty and thirsty pilgrims, in a pillared inclosure, 
called the Paradiso, in front of the old basilica of St. 
Peter. Here it remained for centuries ; and when the 
old church gave way to the new, it was put where it 
now stands, useless and out of place, in the trim and 
formal gardens of the Papal palace.* 

But in the eighteenth canto of the " Inferno," where 
Dante describes how the troops of the seducers and be- 
trayers of women were scourged in opposite directions by 
demons, he draws another image, of finer and more vivid 
character, from a scene at Pome, of which he himself 
had probably been a spectator. It was one of the most 
striking sights that could have been witnessed at Pome 
in that generation. 

"Nel fondo erano ignudi i peccatori: 

Dal mezzo in qua ci venian verso il volto; 
Di la con noi, ma con passi maggiori. 

Come i Roman, per V esercito molto, 
L* anno del Giubileo, su per lo ponte 
Hanno a passar la gente modo tolto: 

Che dalP un lato tutti hanno la fronte 
Verso il castello, e vanno a Santo Pietro, 
Dall' altra sponda vanno verso il monte." 

" In the abyss the sinners were naked. On this side 
of the middle they came facing us ; on the other side 
[they went along] with us, but with greater steps : as 

* At the present day it serves the bronze-workers of Rome as a 
model for an inkstand, such as is seen in the shop-windows every 
winter, and is sold to travellers, few of whom know the history and 
the poetry belonging to its original. 



ROME. 255 

the Romans, because of the great throng, in the year of 
Jubilee, have taken means to pass the people over the 
bridge, so that on the one side all have their faces towards 
the Castle, and go to St. Peter, on the other side they go 
towards the Mount." 

The year of Jubilee, 1300, was the year to the Easter 
of which Dante assigns the date of his journey through 
the spiritual realms. The Roman Church had lost one 
of its chief sources of wealth, and of power to excite en- 
thusiasm, by the loss of Palestine. The Crusades were 
ended, and plenary indulgences could no longer be offered 
to those who engaged in them. But the memory of them 
still dwelt in the minds of men. The seething energies 
of the time longed for some new outlet, and its w T ild and 
irregular impulses were cramped in the narrow spaces 
of European life. Men were impatient for some easy 
means of acquiring the assurance of salvation, and 
mourned that they could no longer fight their way into 
Paradise. Everywhere the passionate elements of so- 
ciety prevailed. Boniface VIII. w r as too able a man to 
allow such emotions to exist without turning them to the 
profit of the Church of which he was the head. The 
beginning of the new century brought many pilgrims to 
the Papal city, and the Pope, seeing to what account 
the treasury of indulgences possessed by the Church 
might now be turned, hit upon the plan of promising 
plenary indulgence to all who, during the year, should 
visit with fit dispositions the holy places of Rome. He 
accordingly, in the most solemn manner, proclaimed a 
year of Jubilee, to date from the Christmas of 1299, and 



256 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

appointed a similar celebration for each hundredth year 
thereafter. The report of the marvellous promise spread 
rapidly through Europe ; and as the year advanced, pil- 
grims poured into Italy from remote as well as from neigh- 
boring lands. The roads leading to Rome were dusty with 
bands of travellers pressing forward to gain the unwonted 
indulgence. The Crusades had made travel familiar to 
men, and a journey to Rome seemed easy to those who 
had dreamed of the Farther East, of Constantinople, and 
Jerusalem. Giovanni Villani, who was among the pil- 
grims from Florence, declares that there were never less 
than two hundred thousand strangers at Rome during the 
year ; * and Guglielmo Ventura, the chronicler of Asti, 
reports the total number of pilgrims at not less than two 
millions. The picture which he draws of Rome during 
the Jubilee is a curious one. " Mirandum est quod pas- 
sim ibant viri et mulieres, qui anno illo Romge fuerunt 
quo ego ibi fui et per dies xv. steti. De pane, vino, 
carnibus, piscibus, et avena, bonum mercatum ibi erat; 
foenum carissimum ibi fuit ; hospitia carissima ; taliter 
quod lectus meus et equi mei super foeno et avena con- 
stabat mihi tornesium unum grossum. Exiens de Roma 
in Vigilia Nativitatis Christi, vidi turbam magnam, qnam 
dinumerare nemo poterat ; et fama erat inter Romanos, 
quod ibi fuerant plusquam vigenti centum millia virorum 
et mulierum. Pluries ego vidi ibi tarn viros quam mu- 
lieres conculcatos sub pedibus aliorum ; et etiam egomet 
in eodem periculo plures vices evasi. Papa innumera- 
bilem pecuniam ab eisdem recepit, quia die ac nocte duo 

* Istorie Florentine, viii. 36. 



ROME. 257 

clerici stabant ad altare Sancti Pauli tenentes in coram 
manibus rastellos, rastellantes pecuniam infinitam." * To 
accommodate the throng of pilgrims, and to protect them 
as far as possible from the danger which Ventura feel- 
ingly describes, a barrier was erected along the middle 
of the bridge under the castle of Sant' Angelo, so that 
those going to St. Peter's and those coming from the 
church, passing on opposite sides, might not interfere 
with each other. It seems not unlikely that Dante him- 
self was one of the crowd who thus crossed the old 
bridge, over whose arches, during this year, a flood of 
men was flowing almost as constantly as the river's flood 
ran through below. 

There is one other reference to this year of Jubilee in 
the " Divina Commedia." It is in the exquisitely beauti- 
ful passage, full of the tenderest feeling, descriptive of the 
meeting of the poet with his friend, the singer Casella, 
on the shore of Purgatory, f " For three months," says 
Casella, " for three months has the angel who brings the 
souls in his boat across the sea brought readily whoever 
wished to embark." These three months were those 
which at Easter had elapsed since the Jubilee began. 
The angel, who at other times might keep some souls 
waiting for their passage to Purgatory from the mouth 
of the Tiber, where, according to Dante's symbolical 
geography, all the spirits destined for Purgatory assem- 
bled, had, during this time, suffered all to enter his boat 
without delay, — so far did the authority of the Church 

* Tosti, Storia dl Bonifazio VIII. ii. 284. 
f Purgatorio, ii. 98, 99. 
17 



258 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

extend, and such was the harmony between its earthly 
and its spiritual ministers in this season of rejoicing. 

The castle of Sant' Angelo, beneath whose walls the 
crowded bridge crossed the river, had undergone strange 
varieties of fortune since the time when Hadrian built it 
for his tomb and that of his successors. Alaric, in search 
of hidden treasure, had burst through its bronze doors 
into the dark chambers in which the ashes of Antoninus 
Pius and Marcus Aurelius, whose names alone should 
have preserved it from profanation, were reposing. The- 
odoric the Goth had changed the despoiled tomb into a 
fortress. The soldiers of Belisarius had torn down the 
marble statues that still adorned its terraced walls, to 
hurl them on the heads of their besiegers. Successive 
Popes stripped it of its finest marbles, and carried away 
pilasters and columns with which to construct and orna- 
ment their new churches, — and for years it was now a 
fort and now a quarry, according to the needs of its pos- 
sessors. The name which the castle now bears had its 
origin in an event, half historic and half legendary, which 
occurred in the year 590. Rome had been distressed by 
a terrible inundation of the Tiber, and this disaster had 
been followed by a dreadful pestilence, to which the 
Pope himself had fallen a victim. St. Gregory was sum- 
moned by clergy and by people to fill the vacant pontif- 
ical chair. Before accepting the charge, he called an 
assembly of the Romans, and, rebuking them for their 
sins, upon which the pestilence was a divine judgment, 
urged them to acts of penitence and humiliation. A day 
was set for a solemn procession through the city to the 



ROME. 259 

church of St. Peter, in the hope of propitiating Heaven. 
Seven processions of penitents, uttering prayers and sup- 
plications, met from various points on the way to the 
church. The regular clergy came from the church of 
St. John the Baptist, the monks from that of the martyrs 
John and Paul, the virgins from that of the Saints Cos- 
mos and Damianus, the poor and the children from that 
of St. Caecilia, the widows from St. Yitalis, the men from 
St. Marcellus, the married women from St. Stephen's. 
Many persons fell dead as they marched through the 
streets. Gregory himself walked at the head of the 
united bands, bearing in his hands a miracle-working 
picture of a black Madonna and Child, said to have been 
painted by St. Luke.* As the procession was crossing 
the bridge, the Pope raised his eyes and beheld on the 
summit of the Mausoleum an angel sheathing his sword. 
It was the angel of the pestilence, and, according to the 
legend, from that hour the sickness ceased through the 
city. The picture which the Pope was carrying still ex- 
ists, and is venerated in the rich and tasteless chapel of 
the Borghese family, in the basilica of Santa Maria Mag- 
giore. And still on the 25th of April in each year a 
procession takes place to St. Peter's, in commemoration 
of this miracle.f 

* The industry of the Saint in producing copies of this portrait of 
the Virgin seems to have been more remarkable than his artistic skill. 
" Seven such pictures," says the good Benedictine Montfaucon, " exist, 
if I am not mistaken, in different churches of the city, — all brought 
from Greece." And there is scarcely a large town in Italy that does 
not possess one, at least, of these black Byzantine Madonnas. 

f Gregory of Tours, x. 1; Nibby, Roma Antica, ii. 499; Roma Mo 
derna, i. 401. 



260 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Not long after the marvellous vision, a little church 
was built on the high top of the castle where the Pope 
had beheld the angel. Being dedicated to the Arch- 
angel Michael, it was called by the fanciful name of San? 
Angelo inter JVubes, the Church of the Holy Angel in the 
Clouds, and by degrees its name was in part transferred 
to the great foundation upon which it stood. 

But the church did not interfere with the use of the 
building as a fortress and a prison. Here, in the ninth 
century, the notorious and beautiful Marozia, whose 
lover, whose son, and whose grandson were Popes, held 
her seat, and tempted successive husbands with the lure 
of her charms, and of the hope of supremacy over 
Rome. Here Pope John X. was stifled to death, and 
John XIV. was starved, — "famis crudelitate necalus 
est" Here Crescentius, whose character it is difficult to 
read through the darkness of the times, was besieged and 
betrayed, — and dying, left his name to his stronghold, 
known as the Tower of Crescentius. Here, in the 
twelfth century, the brave reformer, Arnaldo da Brescia, 
was imprisoned, and from his dungeon was led out early 
in the morning, before the city which had so often an- 
swered to his earnest and eloquent appeals was astir, 
to be burnt on the Piazza del Popolo. During succes- 
sive troubled centuries, the castle was held sometimes by 
the enemies and sometimes by the friends of the people 
and the Popes, sometimes by the Popes themselves. 
Not long after the great Jubilee, it fell into the hands of 
the Orsini, who occupied it for many years, during the 
contentions between them and the other quarrelsome and 



ROME. 2G1 

noble houses of Rome. In those days of brutal violence, 
the thick-walled tombs of the old Romans were often 
turned into dens by their savage successors. 

But let us return to the illustrations which Dante's 
poem affords of the condition of Rome. The ninth canto 
of the " Paradiso " closes with a denunciation of the 
greed and avarice of the Pope and the Cardinals. Their 
thoughts are fixed upon their privileges and their gains, 
" and no longer go to Nazareth, where Gabriel unfolded 
his wings. But the Vatican, and the other chosen parts 
of Rome which were the burial-places of the soldiery 
that followed Peter, shall soon be free from this adultery." 

" Ma Vaticano, e F altre parti elette 
Di Roma che son state cimitero 
Alia milizia che Pietro seguette, 
Tosto libere fien dell' adultero." 

On the Vatican, where the followers of Peter had 
been murdered in the circus of Nero, — " ferarum tergis 
contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus aclfixi, aut 
flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni 
luminis urerentur," — stood the church erected in honor, 
and believed to possess the relics, of the chief of the 
Apostles, but now profaned and violated by him who pro- 
fessed to be the successor 'of Peter. All around, within 
the city, and in the fields without its walls, were the 
chosen places where lay the soldiery that followed Peter, 
— the places where St. John and St. Paul had suffered 
martyrdom, and where they were buried, — the cata- 
combs and churches full of the relics and the traditions of 



262 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the faithful and persecuted disciples at Rome, now turned 
by licentious or infidel churchmen to the uses of worldly- 
profit, or given over to desolation and decay/ St. Peter 
in Paradise is filled with holy wrath at him who, claiming 
to be his successor, had thus forgotten the example and 
dishonored the memory of the founders of the church. 
" He who on earth usurps my place, my place, my place, 
which is empty before the Son of God, he has made of 
my tomb a sewer of blood and of filth." 

" Quegli ch' usurpa in terra il luogo mio, 
II luogo mio, il luogo mio, che vaca 
Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio, 
Fatto ha del cimiterio mio cloaca 
Del sangue e della puzza." 

Paradiso, xxviii. 22-26. 

If the "Divina Commedia" could be expurgated, this 
passage would not appear in the Roman editions of the 
poem. But Dante is the unsilenced justiciary of Popes, 
princes, and people. 

Nor is it only in Paradise that the evil deeds of Boni- 
face are denounced. They are remembered against him 
in Hell. In the circle of the Simonists a place is re- 
served for him. In the very depths of Hell, where lying 
counsellers are punished, Guido da Montefeltro curses 
him from within the fire, and tells Dante the story of 
the evil counsel which Boniface had solicited, profited 
by, and undertaken to absolve. A line in his story 
recalls us to Rome, — where " the Prince of the new 
Pharisees, having a war near the Lateran, and not 
with Saracens or Jews, for every enemy of his was 



ROME. 263 

Christian," followed the advice of deceit, and 

a triumph by " promising much and fulfilling little." 

" Lo Principe de' nuovi Farisei, 

Avendo guerra presso a Laterano, 
E non con Saracin ne con Guidei, 
Che ciascun suo nernico era Cristiano." 

" Lunga promessa con V attender corto 



This " war near the Lateran " was a war with the 
great family of Colonna. Two of the house were Cardi- 
nals. They had been deceived in the election,* and 
were rebellious under the rule of Boniface. The Cardi- 
nals of the great Ghibelline house took no pains to con 
ceal their ill-will toward the Guelf Pope. Boniface, in- 
deed, accused them of plotting with his enemies for his 
overthrow. The Colonnas, finding Rome unsafe, had 
withdrawn to their strong town of Palestrina, whence 
they could issue forth at will for plunder, and where 
they could give shelter to those who shared in their 
hostility toward the Pope. On the other hand, Boniface, 
not trusting himself in Rome, withdrew to the secure 
height of Orvieto, and thence, on the 14th of December, 
1297, issued a terrible bull for a crusade against them, 
granting plenary indulgence to all, (such was the Chris- 
tian temper of the times, and so literally were the violent 

* Dante refers to the deceit practised by Boniface: — 

" Se' tu si tosto di quell' ayer sazio, 

Per lo qual non temesti torre a inganno 

La bella Donna, e di poi fame strazio ? " 

Inferno, xix. 55 



264 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

seizing upon the kingdom of Heaven,) granting plenary 
indulgence to all who would take up arms against these 
rebellious sons of the Church and march against their 
chief stronghold, their " alto seggio " of Palestrina. They 
and their adherents had already been excommunicated 
and put under the ban of the Church ; they had been 
stripped of all dignities and privileges ; their property 
had been confiscated ; and they were now by this bull 
placed in the position of enemies, not of the Pope alone, 
but of the Church Universal. Troops gathered against 
them from all quarters of Papal Italy.* Their lands 
were ravaged, and they themselves shut up within their 
stronghold ; but for a long time they held out in their 
ancient high-walled mountain-town. It was to gain Pal- 
estrina that Boniface " had war near the Lateran." The 
great church and palace of the Lateran, standing on the 
summit of the Coelian Hill, close to the city wall, over- 
looks the Campagna, which, in broken levels of brown 
and green and purple fields, reaches to the base of the 
encircling mountains. Twenty miles away, crowning the 
top and clinging to the side of one of the last heights of 
the Sabine range, are the gray walls and roofs of Pales- 

* The Cardinal Matteo d' Acquasparta went, as Legate of the 
Pope, through Italy, scattering the Papal indulgences, and stimulat- 
ing the people to take up the cross and fight against the Colonnas. 
His laxity as General of the Franciscan Order is referred to by Dante, 
Paradise), xii. 124-6 : — 

"Ma non fia da Casal, ne d' Acquasparta." 

His tomb is to be seen in the church of S. Maria di Aracceli, at 
Rome. 



ROME. 265 

trina. It was a far more conspicuous place at the close 
of the thirteenth century than it is now ; for the great 
columns of the famous temple of Fortune still rose above 
the town, and the ancient citadel kept watch over it from 
its high rock. At length, in September, 1298, the Colon- 
nas, reduced to the hardest extremities, became ready for 
peace. Boniface promised largely. The two Cardinals 
presented themselves before him at Eieti, in coarse brown 
dresses, and with ropes around their necks, in token of 
their repentance and submission. The Pope gave them 
not only pardon and absolution, but hope of being re- 
stored to their titles and possessions. This was the 
" lunga promessa con V attender corto " ; for, while the 
Colonnas were retained near him, and these deceptive 
hopes held out to them, Boniface sent the Bishop of Or- 
vieto to take possession of Palestrina, and to destroy it 
utterly, leaving only the church to stand as a monument 
above its ruins. The work was done thoroughly ; — a 
plough was drawn across the site of the unhappy town 
and salt scattered in the furrow, that the land might 
thenceforth be desolate. The inhabitants were removed 
from the mountain to the plain, and there forced to build 
new homes for themselves, w T hich, in their turn, two years 
afterwards, were thrown down and burned by order of 
the implacable Pope. This last piece of malignity was 
accomplished in 1300, the year of the Jubilee, the year 
in which Dante was in Rome, and in which he saw 
Guy of Montefeltro, the counsellor of Boniface in deceit, 
burning in Hell. 

The Pope himself died in 1303, and the Colonnas, 



266 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

freed from his vindictive hostility,* pressed a claim for 
reparation for the losses they had suffered, before the 
conclave of Cardinals. Their petition has been pre- 
served, and is an interesting document, as proving the 
completeness of the destruction of Palestrina, and ex- 
hibiting some of the curious fancies of the age. After 
suing for the restoration to them of their titles as Car- 
dinals, they claim compensation for the ruin of their city, 
" quce totaliter supposita fuit exterminio et ruince" with 
its very noble and ancient palaces, " and with its great 
and solemn temple, which was dedicated to the honor of 
the Blessed Virgin, and built by Julius Caesar the Em- 
peror, \$ith wide and ample steps of noblest marble, by 
which one might go up to the palace and temple even 
on horseback, and which steps were more than a hun- 
dred in number." f All these, they declare, including the 
palace built by Caesar in the form of a C, on account of 
its being the first letter of his name, were destroyed by 
the tyranny of Boniface, with incalculable loss, — for great 
sums of money would not rebuild them, and no reckon- 

* The Colonnas, after the destruction of Palestrina, had fled in 
various directions. Those who might receive or afford them aid 
had been deprived, by a special bull, of all the privileges of the Jubi- 
lee. The words afford a striking instance of Christian temper: " Et 
qui receptabunt Columnenses eosdem, . . . . et qui dabunt scientes 
supradictis, eorum alicui vel aliquibus, auxilium, consilium, vel 

favorem, indulgentiarum hujusmodi cum non sint capaces, 

nolumus esse participes, ipsosque penitus excludimus ab eisdem." 
(Tosti. ii. 283.) This was the Papal translation of " If thine enemy- 
thirst, give him drink." What are the present pretensions of the 
Church in regard to her Popes? 

j" Petrini, Memorie Prenestine. p. 429. 



ROME. 267 

mg of money could restore their nobleness and an- 
tiquity. 

These words in regard to the preciousness of the 
old buildings, from the associations which belonged to 
them, may be accepted as not a mere piece of rhetoric 
on the part of the Colonnas, to enhance their loss, but 
as an expression of genuine feeling. During a long 
period, fatal to many ancient buildings and to many 
monuments of past times, the Colonnas were honorably 
distinguished by their care and reverence for what was 
left of the works of the elder Romans, — and in the next 
generation Petrarch speaks of it as one of the glories of 
his friends, the Colonnas of that time, that they held their 
country's ruins dear. 

From such a Rome as this, a Rome of wrong, violence, 
and bitterness, it is no wonder that Dante turned in dis- 
gust. From the real Rome he turned to the Rome of 
his imagination. The vision of that Rome which should 
bring the world into peaceful subjection, fulfilling the 
decrees of Heaven, and uniting divine with human 
authority, was a vision which consoled his exile and his 
solitary age, and was illuminated by his poetry and his 
patriotism. But there was for him also a heavenly 
Rome, — and to this heavenly Rome his life was but 
a long pilgrimage. The first gracious words that 
Beatrice addresses to him, at their meeting near the 
entrance of Paradise, are, " Thou shalt be with me 
forever a citizen of that Rome of which Christ is a 
Roman," — 

" Di quello Roma onde Cristo e Romano." 



268 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Rome, March, 1857. 
" From my infancy I burned with desire of seeing 
Rome," says Petrarch ; but he was already past thirty 
years old, before this desire was fulfilled. In 1335, he 
set out from Avignon to go to Rome, not merely for the 
sake of seeing the city, but also to see again some of 
the members of the great Colonna family, whom he had 
known at the French Papal Court, and especially the 
now old, but still vigorous Stephen Colonna, the father 
of the chief friends of the poet. Just before his depar- 
ture, he writes to James Colonna, Bishop of Lombez, 
then at Rome, telling him of his proposed journey, and 
saying, — " It passes belief how much I desire to see that 
city, though she be deserted, and the mere image of 
ancient Rome ; and that I have never seen it I blame 
my sloth, — if it be sloth, and not necessity. Seneca, 
writing to Lucilius from the villa of Scipio Africanus, 
seems to me to exult ; nor does he esteem it a little thing 
to have seen the place where that great man passed his 
exile, and where he left the bones that he refused to his 
country. If a Spaniard was thus moved, what do you 
think that I, a man of Italy, feel, not in regard to the 
villa of Liternum or the burial-place of Scipio, but in 
regard to the city of Rome, where Scipio was born and 
brought up, and where, victor or accused, he triumphed 
with equal glory ; where not only he, but innumerable 
men of whom Fame will never be silent, have lived; — 
about that city, I say, one like to which there never 
was and never will be, and which even by its enemy 
was called the City of Kings ? Or suppose that I were 



ROME. 269 

in no wise touched by these things, how sweet is it to 
a Christian soul to behold the city like to heaven on 
earth, full of the sacred bodies and bones of the Martyrs, 
and sprinkled with the precious blood of the witnesses 
to the truth ! to see the image of the Saviour vener- 
ated by the people, and his footprints in the hardest 
rock, to be adored forever by the nations ! to walk 
round the tombs of the Saints ; to wander through the 
halls of the Apostles ; with better cares now for com- 
panions, — the restless solicitudes of the present life 
being left behind on the shore of Marseilles ! " * 

This passage is characteristic of Petrarch. It exhib- 
its his somewhat stiff and rhetorical style, his love for 
the past, and his reverence for the great men of an- 
cient Rome. He had studied with enthusiasm all that 
could be found written concerning them ; and by his 
almost unaided efforts he excited a wide interest among 
his contemporaries in the learning of earlier times. He 
had taken Scipio Africanus as the hero of his Latin epic 
of " Africa," the poem which won the admiration of his 
own age, and upon which he fancied his fame would rest. 
With a scholarship really profound and liberal for the 
period, he united a belief in Christianity as sincere, if 
not as fervent, as his regard for heathenism, and Rome 
was dear to him from its Christian associations no less 
than from its pagan glories. 

In a letter to the Cardinal John Colonna at the Court 
of Avignon, Petrarch describes his approach to Rome. 
The letter is written from Capranica, between twenty 

* De Reb. Fam. Epist. ii. 9. 



270 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

and thirty miles from Kome, the seat of Orso, Count 
of Anguillara, the brother-in-law of the Cardinal. Here 
he had been detained for sixteen days, owing to the dan- 
gers of the road to Rome. The enemies of the Colon- 
nas were besieging all the approaches to their house, 
and Petrarch's letter gives a lively picture of the peril- 
ous condition of the Campagna. After speaking of the 
fertility and salubrity of the country,* he says, " Peace 
alone is wanting to it, — peace, exiled by I know not 
what crime of the people, what decree of Heaven, what 
fate, or what force of the stars. The shepherd armed 
keeps watch in the woods, not fearing wolves so much 
as plunderers ; the ploughman wears a cuirass, and uses 
a lance as a goad for his oxen ; the fowler covers his 
nets with a shield ; the fisherman hangs his bait from 
a sword ; and you may laugh, but even one going to 
draw water from a well ties a rusty helmet to the 
dirty rope. Nothing is safe, peaceable, or humane, 
among the inhabitants of these regions ; but here are 
war and hatred, and everything like the works of dev- 
ils." f The Count of Anguillara was, however, a man 
with whom Petrarch, if we may trust the description 
that he gives of him, might have been well contented 
to pass a fortnight ; — "a lover of peace, but without 
fear of war, second to no one in hospitality, rigidly kind 
to his own people, well acquainted with the Muses, and " 

* u Aerliic, quantum breve tempus oslendit, saluberrimus." This 
district is now wasted by malaria. The retribution has followed the 
wrong-doing. 

t De Beb. Fain. Epist. ii. 12. 



ROME. 271 

(this last point may have touched the young poet) " a 
most elegant admirer and praiser of excellent geniuses." 
His wife, Agnes, the daughter of Stephen Colonna, was 
a woman worthy, it seems, of such a husband. " It is 
better to be silent about her than to say too little," says 
their guest ; " for she is of those who are best praised 
by wonder and silence." 

Less than two years before the date of this visit, one 
of the Colonnas had laid an ambush for his enemies, 
the then Count of Anguillara and Bertoldo of the Or- 
sini, as they were coming into Rome to treat for jjeace, 
after long contention, w r ith Stephen Colonna and others 
of his family. Their attendants were few ; both the 
Count and Bertoldo were slain ; and this was the begin- 
ning of much evil; — for before that time, in all their 
wars, the Orsini and the Colonnas had never slain nor 
wounded each other.* The memory of this treachery 
was still fresh in the minds not only of those who had 
suffered from it, but of those who feared revenge for it. 
Petrarch, finding how dangerous the attempt to reach 
the Colonnas in Rome would be, sent a letter announc- 
ing his arrival at Capranica to his friend James Colonna, 
asking him how he should get into the city. The Bishop 
speedily returned him an answer, congratulating him on 
his coming to Italy, and bidding him wait still a short 
time longer. After a day or two, — it was now the end 
of January, — the Bishop appeared at Capranica, accom- 
panied by his brother Stephen. Each of them was 
attended by about a hundred armed horsemen, a very 

* Giovanni Villani, Movie Florentine, x. 220. 



272 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN .ITALY. 

small number, it was thought, — for their enemies were 
known to have more than five hundred horse under their 
banners ; but with this escort, and in company with these 
friends, Petrarch safely entered the city he had so long 
desired to behold.* 

His next letter to the Cardinal is a very natural one. 
" You thought that I should write something great 
when I had come to Home," he says ; " and perhaps 
by-and-by I may ; but I can write nothing now. One 
thing only I will say, — for it has fallen out contrary 
to what you supposed. You used to advise me not to 
come, chiefly on this pretext, — lest the aspect of the 
ruinous city not answering to its fame, or to my precon- 
ceived opinion got from books, my ardor would grow 
slack. And I, too, though burning with desire, not un- 
willingly put off coming, fearing lest my eyes, and the 
actual presence, which is hostile to great names, should 
reduce the idea I had formed for myself. But this pres- 
ence, strange to say, diminishes nothing, but increases 
everything; and Rome, in truth, was greater, and her 
remains are greater, than I had thought." f 

This is all that Petrarch tells of his first impres- 
sions of the city, and he has left no further letters con- 
cerning his first stay there. Nearly seven years passed 
before he visited it a second time. He was now at 
the height of his reputation. On the 23d of August, 
1340, by a curious coincidence, two invitations reached 
him at Vaucluse, one from the University of Paris, the 

* Be Eeb. Fam. JEpist. ii. 12, 13. 
f Id. ii. 14. 



ROME. 273 

other from the Senate of Rome, to proceed to the respec- 
tive cities to receive the laurel crown as poet. He had 
for a long time been desirous of this honor, and both he 
and his friends had used many efforts to obtain it. His 
fondness for the customs of antiquity, and the affectation 
and false taste which marked his character, had led him 
to set a factitious value on the ceremony, and to dwell 
with pleasure on the thought of reviving splendidly in 
himself this long extinct usage. With a blindness not 
uncommon to Italians in his and in our days, he did not 
see, that, though the old form of the ceremony might be 
revived, the old spirit which had given worth to it could 
not be called back, and that the leaves of the laurel 
wreath would now be but dry leaves at the best.* 

* The fancies of other poets beside Petrarch had turned back with 
desire to the old poetic coronation. Now and then, during the century, 
one of the smaller cities of Italy had bestowed the laurel upon some 
now long-forgotten rhymer. In the first of the curious Latin eclogues 
addressed to Dante by Giovanni del Virgilio of Bologna, with the 
object of persuading him to write his poems in Latin and not in the 
vulgar tongue, he suggests to him that by so doing he would deserve 
the laurel crown, which Giovanni promises to obtain for him at Bo- 
logna. Dante, in the eclogue written in reply to that of the presump- 
tuous Virgilio, answers, that the glory and almost the name of poet 
have vanished ; and that, if he be crowned, it must be in his own city 
on the Arno, where he may cover with the leafy wreath the gray 
hairs once golden. 

" Nonne triumphales melius pexare capillos, 
Et patrio redeam. si quando, abscondere canos 
Fronde sub inserta solitum flavescere Sarno ? " 

And again, as all the readers of his Paradiso remember, near the 
close of the poem, to which both heaven and earth had set their 
hands, he says, " If ever this sacred poem may conquer that cruelty 
18 



274 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 






Consulting his own inclination, and following the ad- 
vice of his friends, Petrarch determined to accept the 
Roman invitation, — and in February, 1341, set out anew 
toward Rome, going first, however, to Naples, where he 
desired to submit himself to an examination before King 
Robert the Good, who was distinguished by his love 
and patronage of letters, and whose testimony to his 
fitness to receive the laurel the poet wished to obtain. 
After an examination that lasted for three days, — " tri~ 
duo excussa ignorantia meet" — Petrarch was adjudged 
worthy of the laurel, which the King urged him to accept 
from his hands at Naples ; but love of Rome prevailed, 
and, without exciting the royal displeasure, Petrarch re- 
fused the proffered honor. King Robert dismissed him 
with letters and messages to the Roman Senate filled 
with the warmest commendation. " The royal judgment/' 
wrote Petrarch, many years afterwards, " was then espe- 
cially in accordance with my own ; but now I do not 
approve it ; — love was stronger in it than zeal for the 
truth." 

Since the period of Petrarch's former visit, the quar- 
rels between the Colonnas and the Orsini had been stifled 
for the time by the intervention and exertions of a Papal 
legate. The poor Romans had made desperate and pa- 
thetic efforts to secure peace. " In the year 1338," says 
Giovanni Villani,* " the Romans, as if by divine inspira- 

which bars me out from the beautiful sheepfold, I will come back to 
it a poet, and will take the garland upon the font of my baptism." 
Paradiso, xxv. 1-10. See also i. 25-33. 
* Istorie Florentine, xi. 95. 



ROME. 275 

tion, turned themselves to a general peace, both the nobles 
and the people laying aside for the love of God every 
offence one against the other, which was a marvellous 
thing." He then goes on to relate how the Romans sent 
ambassadors to Florence to ask for the ordinances of 
I justice, which were made against the great and the pow- 
erful, in defence of the poor and less powerful, and for 
"the other good ordinances that we have, all of which 
were sent to Rome. And it is to be noted how con- 
ditions change ; for in ancient times the Romans estab- 
lished the city of Florence and gave it laws, and now in 
our times they send for laws to the Florentines." The 
Romans were indeed reduced to sad straits, that they 
should be forced to send for laws to the city which had 
not lost her old character of making 

" tanto sottili 
Provvedimenti che a mezzo novembre 
Non giunge quel che tu d' ottobre fili." 

During this period of comparative quiet in Rome, the 
two Senators were Orso, the Count of Anguillara, the 
former host of Petrarch, and Giordano Orsini. The 
latter, however, was absent from the city at the time of 
Petrarch's arrival, and the duty of crowning the poet 
devolved upon the Count. Easter Day, the 8th of April, 
was appointed for the ceremony. It was a holiday 
for all Rome, — but it was a special festival for the 
Colonnas ; for it was the coronation not only of their 
friend, but of the poet who had celebrated the glo- 
ries of their family. Petrarch has left a poetical de- 
scription of the day. "The Capitol," he says, "was 



276 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

filled with a joyful murmur, and you would have 
thought that the very walls and the old roof joined in 
the rejoicing." Twelve youths, chosen from the best 
families of Rome, dressed in scarlet robes, opened the 
procession, reciting passages from the poems of Petrarch 
that had reference to Rome. They were followed by the 
poet himself, attended by six nobles in green dresses and 
with garlands of flowers on their heads. Then came the 
Senator. When they reached the Capitol, and the trum- 
pets of the heralds were silent, and the people were still, 
the poet, looking down upon the throng and over the 
ruins of old Rome, recited a sonnet in praise of the city, 
and then, crying aloud, " Long live the people, long live 
the Senators of Rome ! May God preserve their liber- 
ty ! " — he knelt before the Count of Anguillara, who, 
with the words, " I crown virtue before all," placed a 
laurel wreath upon his head, amidst the acclamations of 
the people. Then Stephen Colonna, " than whom in our 
time Rome has not borne a greater man," pronounced 
a speech in honor of the poet, and the Senator presented 
Petrarch with a formal diploma, drawn out in a pedan- 
tic and elaborate style, setting forth the motives that had 
led to the bestowal of this honor, lamenting the decline 
of poetic glory, which had gone so far " that even what 
is meant by the name of poet is almost unknown to 
men, many believing the office of the poet nothing else 
than to make false inventions and tell lies," — and finally 
giving authority to him in the arts of poetry and history, 
" in this most holy city, which is the chief of all cities 
and lands, or elsewhere, to read, discuss, and interpret 



ROME. 277 

the writings of the ancients, and to compose new books 
of his own, to last, with the aid of God, through all 
ages." The ceremony being thus concluded, the proces- 
sion was formed anew, and went through the city to St. 
Peter's, where Petrarch hung up his laurel wreath as a 
votive offering. Then returning to the residence of the 
Colonnas, a banquet was served, at which the Bishop 
of Lombez recited a sonnet, in honor of the laureate.* 

The next day Petrarch left Pome, on his return. 
" Scarcely had I got outside the walls of the city," he 
writes, " with those who had accompanied me, ere we 
fell into the hands of armed robbers, from whom how we 
were freed, and obliged to return to Pome, and what a 
commotion there was among the people on account of it, 
and how under the protection of an armed guard we de- 
parted the next day, would be too long a story to tell." 
This little sketch of what befell him is curious enough, 
however, and indicates clearly the condition of the Cani- 
pagna in the neighborhood of Pome.f 

Pome was now dearer than ever to Petrarch. In the 
autumn of the next year he was again there, on his way 
to Naples, and we find him writing as usual to his friend 
the Cardinal. " Although late at night when I arrived, 
yet, before resting, I went to see your magnanimous 
father. Good God ! what majesty in the man ! what a 

* This sonnet affords an early instance of the excessive hyperbole 
of modem Italian eulogy. It is not strange that the people of Italy 
gained the idea that " the office of the poet was to lie." Giacomo 
Colonna's sonnet begins, " Se leparti del corpo mio distrutte" 

f See Ejrist. de sumenda Laurea ; Privilegium Laurew ; Epist. Poet 
ii. 1. Epist. ad Post. 



278 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

forehead ! what a countenance ! what a voice ! what a 
manner ! what vigor of mind at his age ! what strength 
of body ! He was altogether the same in appearance as 
when, seven years ago, I left him at Rome, or twelve 
years ago, when I saw him for the first time at Avignon. 
It is wonderful, and almost incredible, that this one man, 
while Rome grows old, does not grow old. I found 
him already half-undressed, and just going to his bed- 
chamber ; so that, after he had made a few affectionate 
inquiries about you, we put off the rest till the next day. 
That day I passed with him, and not a single hour was 
spent in silence." 

Stephen Colonna, the elder, was the most remarkable 
Roman of his time. His long life had been full of vari- 
ety of fortune, and the few years that remained to him 
were to be more changeful than any that had preceded. 
Born not long after the middle of the thirteenth eenturj', 
he had early entered into public life. In 1289 he was 
made governor of Bologna by Nicholas IV., and in 1292 
was Senator of Rome. At the accession of Boniface 
VIII., in 1294, he was involved, with the other mem- 
bers of his house, in the persecution with which the Pope 
relentlessly pursued them. After Boniface had treacher- 
ously gained possession of Palestrina, Stephen, no longer 
secure within his reach, secretly fled away from Tivoli, 
where a dwelling had been assigned to him. He is 
heard of now in Sicily, now in England, now in France 
at the Court of Philippe le Bel, the redoubtable adver- 
sary of Boniface, — but followed always by the implaca- 
ble hatred and the hostile wiles of the Pope. Sometimes 



ROME. 279 

forced to conceal himself, sometimes reduced to extremi- 
ties of want, he never lost heart, or let his intrepid spirit 
sink. One day, at Aries, he fell by chance into the 
hands of his pursuers. " Who are you ? " they asked 
him, not recognizing the man. Ke, scorning falsehood, 
replied, " Stephen Colonna, citizen of Rome " ; and his 
enemies, overcome by his magnanimity and courage, did 
not offer to detain him. On another day, in a hard bat- 
tle, when the fight was doubtful, and a great crowd of 
enemies was pressing round him, a stranger, w T ho, attract- 
ed by his fame, had come to fight at his side, said to him, 
" Stephen, where now r is your fortress ? " " Here," an- 
swered he, smiling, and laying his hand on his heart. 
Many times, in foreign lands, he took part in the bat- 
tles of his friends, unknown to either side till the battle 
was over. Victory seemed always to attend him, — for 
Nature had given him a strength of body that corre- 
sponded to his strength of soul. Often his death was 
reported at Rome, and then all hope for the fortunes 
of the Colonnas fell, for they rested on him alone.* At 
length, after many years of exile and wandering, Boni- 
face being dead, he returned to his native city. From 
that time forward, for almost half a century, he held 
the place of the first citizen of Rome. He supported 
the cause of the Emperor Henry VII., the " alto Ar- 
rigo" and w-as his chief protector at the time of his 
coronation in 1312, when Rome w r as divided into two 

* " Gloriosa Colonna, in cui s' appoggia 

Nostra speranza e '1 gran nome Latino," 
says Petrarch, in his tenth Sonnet. 



280 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

camps, of the Emperor's enemies and friends. Some 
years later, during a time of famine and distress, when 
the people rose against the existing Senator, he was 
made Senator by acclamation, with Poncello Orsini as 
his colleague. And then he and Orsini, bringing out the 
grain from their own storehouses into the public square, 
and compelling the other nobles to do the same, distrib- 
uted it to the exacting and violent people. 

A family of seven sons and six daughters added to 
the strength of Colonna. All the sons were men of 
more than common fortune. The eldest, named after his 
father, Stephen, was distinguished as a man of arms ; * 
John, the second son, was a Cardinal ; and the four next 
brothers were also dignitaries in the Church ; while 
Henry, the youngest, was a soldier. 

In his old age Stefano Colonna retained the vigor of 
his youth. On one occasion, when he was nearly eighty 
years old, he, with other spectators, among whom was 
Petrarch, was looking on at the games and trials of 
strength on horseback of his sons and other young men, 
— and there was a certain " infamous " lance that no 
one of them could bend, much less break. The old man 
laughingly rebuked their want of vigor, when his son 
Stephen said to him, " It is very easy, father, sitting still 

* Petrarch addressed a sonnet to the younger Stephen, on occasion 
of one of his victories over the Orsini. (Sonnet 82.) The poet associ- 
ates his friendship for the Colonnas with his love for Laura. " A 
•green laurel, a noble column, have I borne in my breast, — the one for 
fifteen, the other for eighteen years, — and never have I parted from 
them." He calls his love for his mistress and his friends his double 
treasure. (Sonnets 227 and 229.) 



ROME. 281 

at a window, to judge those who are working, and to run 
down the present with praise of the past." The ardent 
old soldier got up, went down to the play-ground, calling 
out, " Do you believe that I am not a man? " mounted 
the first horse he found, put spurs to him, and, having 
seized the lance, broke it to splinters.* Petrarch dwells 
often on his kindness, declaring that the old man treat- 
ed him as though he had been his own son. Once, in 
Rome, when there had been a quarrel between him and 
one of his sons, the poet relates, that, as he was walking 
in the afternoon with the old Colonna, he succeeded in 
reconciling him to his son, but that, as they were talking 
over the fortunes of the family, and had stopped, " lean- 
ing against that beautiful ancient marble tomb which is 
on the corner of the street," the old man, weeping, said, 
" I had hoped to leave some inheritance to my sons, but 
I shall be the heir of them all." f The prophetic inti- 
mation was fulfilled : one after another, all his sons died ; 
the glory of the house was crushed in Rienzi's short, un- 
fruitful despotism ; and when the news of the death of his 
eldest son and of his grandson, fighting against Rienzi, 
was brought to the old man, he fixed his eyes a little 
while upon the ground, and then said, without a tear, 
" The will of God be done ! It is truly better to die than 
to bear the yoke of a rustic." j The lonely survivor of 
his children and his children's children died, at length, 
not long before the middle of the fourteenth century. 



* Epist. Eerum Senil. xii. 1. f De Reb. Fam. Epist. viii. 1. 
$ Rerum Senil. x. 4. 






282 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

His grand figure looms up in noble and stately propor- 
tions in the dusk of that dim age. In the " Triumph of 
Fame" Petrarch introduces two characters of his own 
time ; — one was " the good Sicilian King," Robert of 
Naples ; the other was Stefano Colonna, - — 

" il mio gran Colonnese, 
Magnanimo, gentil, costante, e largo." 

The friendship for the poet extended to all the mem- 
bers of the great family. " Whoever springs from that 
stock will be my master, and will also be my son," said 
Petrarch. He recalls with constant pleasure his inter- 
course with them. He lingers on the memory of it, and 
repeats his expressions of affection. Even the cold 
rhetoric of his Latin style does not conceal the warmth 
of his grateful feeling. " As often as I go to Rome, I 
am received more like an angel than a man." One day, 
a strife having arisen in the household of John Colon- 
na, and his people having come to blows, he became 
very angry, and called before him all who were in the 
house, that he might examine into the origin of the 
quarrel. Each man was sworn in turn to tell what he 
knew of it ; the oath was administered even to his broth- 
er, the Bishop of Luni ; but when Petrarch came to take 
the oath, and had already put out his hand, the Cardinal 
drew back the volume of the Gospels, saying, " Your 
simple word is enough." * In a letter to the Cardinal, 
the poet brings to mind the long walks and conversations 
he had had with him in Rome, and his recollections have 

* De Reb. Fam. Epht. v. 2. 



ROME. 283 

a pleasing kindliness of tone. " We often used," he 
says, " when we were tired with walking through the 
immense city, to stop at the Baths of Diocletian, and 
sometimes to mount up to the roof of that once most mag- 
nificent building. The healthful air, the open prospect, 
the silence, and the votive solitude, drove away all 
thought of affairs and care. There was no talk of family 
concerns, none of the republic, which to have wept for 
once is enough, the fragments of whose ruins were before 
our eyes as we sat there. Much of our talk was of his- 
tory, in which it seemed that I was more skilled in the 
ancient and you in the modern times ; much, also, of that 
part of philosophy which instructs in morals ; and some- 
times of the arts, their inventors, and their principles." 
The view which these friends saw, as they sat together 
on the grass that covers the ruinous vaults of Diocletian's 
Baths, was not greatly different then from what it is to- 
day. The yellow wall-flower lit up with its gold the 
brown fissures of the old walls, and the cypresses threw 
down their slow and melancholy shadows over the sunlit 
ruin. Far off, the snow touched the gray summits of the 
Sabine mountains ; Tivoli sparkled on its olive-covered 
hill ; while on the other side, the great temple of the 
Alban Jove, yet undestroyed, looked down from its top- 
most crest of rock. Towers, which are now ruins, the 
sheltering-places of sheep and shepherds, were then seen 
scattered over the Campagna, little destructive strong- 
holds, the seats of robbers who watched travellers going 
in and out of the city, regarding them as the flocks that 
they were to fleece. But in our days, with one part of 



284 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Diocletian's Baths turned into a church as bare as it is 
inappropriate, with another portion given up to convent 
buildings and cloisters, and with the remainder occupied 
as a magazine of forage for the French troops, there is 
little remaining venerableness about the mighty ruin. 
Michel Angelo's genius was ill employed in turning the 
halls of a luxurious bath-house into the aisles and tran- 
septs of a Carthusian church ; and the French, who, in 
the course of this century, have done so much to pre- 
serve the ancient buildings of Rome, might well have 
found some fitter place for storing their straw and grain. 

In Petrarch's time, however, the Romans were even 
more indifferent to their city than they now are, and 
more wantonly destructive of its old remains, much as is 
done in the way of destruction (by restorations, so called) 
at the present day. " Who," asks Petrarch, " are more 
ignorant of Roman things than the Roman citizens ? I 
say it unwillingly, but nowhere is Rome less known than 
in Rome itself, — in which I mourn not only for the igno- 
rance, but for what is worse than ignorance, the flight 
and exile of many of the virtues. For who can doubt 
that Rome would instantly rise again, if she but began 
to know herself ? " * 

Petrarch's interest seems to have been divided in very 
equal measure between the remains of the heathen city 
and those of the early Church and the first Christians. 
In naming over the places in the city he had seen, he 
begins with a list of those which had interested him from 
their associations with classical times, and ends with a list 

* Be Reb. Fam. Epist. vi. 2. See also Poet. Epist. ii. 5, 13. 



ROME. 285 

of those which were sacred to him as the scenes of famous 
events in the history of the Church. Here was the Cave 
of Cacus ; here the way infamous as that along which the 
wretched Tullia drove ; here was the bridge from which 
the brave Horatius leaped into the river ; here was the 
Tarpeian Rock ; here the Curtian Gulf; here Caesar tri- 
umphed, and here he died ; here were the Portico of 
Pompey, the Column of Trajan, the Temple of Peace, the 
Tomb of Hadrian ; and here were the horses of Phidias 
and Praxiteles, the marble bearing witness for so many 
centuries to the genius of the artists. But here, too, was 
the place where Christ met his flying vicar ; here Peter 
was slain on the cross, and here Paul was beheaded ; 
here Lawrence spoke, and made a place at his side in 
the tomb for Stephen ; here John despised the boil- 
ing oil ; and here Agnes, living after death, forbade her 
friends to weep. — These were the localities which he 
had sought out and visited in Pome. They are mostly 
familiar to the modern traveller, but at that time there 
was rarely a pilgrim to the holy city who cared for any 
but its Christian associations. Petrarch was one of the 
first to arouse the modern interest in classic characters 
and events, — and the study of the antiquities of Rome 
as a science may date from the time of his visit. Since 
the period of Julius II. and Leo X., of Michel Angelo 
and of Raffaelle, the classical antiquities have been inves- 
tigated, indeed, with far more zeal than the Christian, and 
almost to the exclusion of the latter. Men have been 
more interested in the stories of the founders of Rome 
than in the stories of the founders of our faith. But the 



286 TRAVLL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

fables taught as doctrines or received as facts by the Ro- 
man Church held a large place in Petrarch's imagina- 
tion. His critical skill had never been directed to the 
examination of their evidences. He recalls, for in- 
stance, the old and fanciful fiction, that the body of St. 
Lawrence in his tomb moved and made room for the 
bones of St. Stephen, Avhen they were brought from 
Palestine, to be laid at his side. In a poetical epistle 
addressed to Pope Clement VI., urging him to restore 
the Papal seat to Rome, he presses upon the Pope the 
sacred claims of the city, from its holy relics and its 
holy places ; — relics, among which were the footprints 
of Christ left in the hard rock ; the face of the Saviour 
impressed on a woman's kerchief; the cradle in which 
the Author of all things lay asleep, Mary gently hushing 
him ; — 

" Lac quoque vel puero optatum, vel virginis almas 
Lseve puerperium; puraque ex carne recisara 
Particulam infanti; preciosaque fragmina vestis, 
Et custoditos in secula nostra capillos." * 

* Epist. Poet. ii. 6. The superstitions of the fourteenth century are 
the superstitions of the nineteenth. Any one who has spent Passion 
Week at Rome will remember that one of the chief ceremonies of the 
time is the exhibition of the relics at St. Peter's. It is repeated three 
times during the week. One of those relics is the kerchief of St. 
Veronica, on which the likeness of the Saviour is supposed to have 
been miraculously impressed. The reverential kneeling of the crowd, 
their silence, and the stillness through the usually noisy church, ren- 
der this exhibition one of the most striking scenes of this week of 
stage effects. In a little book entitled I Sette Viaggi dl nostro Si- 
gnore, of which the twelfth edition appeared in Florence in 1851, the 
popular story of this marvellous likeness is told. St. Veronica was 
a noble woman of Jerusalem, whom our Lord healed of a flowing of 



ROME. 287 

It was not only through her relics that Petrarch sought 
to awaken the feeling of the Pope toward Rome ; he ap- 

blood. She became the friend of the Virgin. On his way to Calvary, 
the Saviour sunk under the weight of the cross before her house. 
She, compassionating him, took a veil of linen from her head and gave 
it to him to wipe the sweat and dust from his nice. His likeness was 
in this act miraculously impressed upon it. "It is the established 
opinion that St. Veronica handed this kerchief to the Saviour folded in 
three folds, and that his likeness was impressed on each, — for there 
are three originals venerated in our time in three places: the first in 
St. Peter's at Rome, called the Santo Sudario; the second in Andalusia: 
the third in Jerusalem. " It appears that St. Veronica took the Santo 
Sudario to Rome by order of Tiberius, to cure him of the leprosy, — 
and that she died at Rome, and was buried in St. Peter's. I have a 
copy of the Santo Sudario stamped upon silk, and, accompanying it, a 
formal attest, under the seal of the authorities of the Church, that it 
has been compared with and applied to the original. In regard to an- 
other of the relics referred to by Petrarch, the particula recisa, there 
was a treatise published in Rome, with the approbation of the Holy 
Office, in 1802, of which I have a copy, entitled Narrazione Criiico- 
Storica della Reliquia Preziosissima del Santissimo Prepuzio di N. S. 
Gesu Cristo, die si venera nella Chiesa Parroccliiale di Calcata, Diocesi di 
Civiia Castellana. The whole story, and the philosophical discus- 
sions connected with it in regard to the resurrection of the body in its 
completeness, are of a very remarkable character, and one of the most 
curious examples which even the literature of the Roman Church af- 
fords of the abuse of sacred thoughts and names, and the debasing of 
a spiritual religion to a materialism as gross as that of pagan times. 
In Petrarch's day, this relic was venerated at St. John Lateran. It 
was stolen in the Bourbon's sack of Rome, lost for a term of years, 
and then miraculously rediscovered near Calcata, a little town 
twenty-seven miles from Rome, where it has ever since been the object 
of special veneration and the agent of numerous miracles. The can- 
ons of the Lateran long ago tried to recover it; but its will, as shown 
by miracle, was to remain at Calcata. Five Popes have issued briefs 
relating to it, and a list is given of thirty authors who have treated 
of it, from St. Thomas Aquinas downwards. 



288 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

pealed to his sympathies for her neglected and ruinous 
churches, churches that had once been the glories of the 
sacred city. " As many as my churches were, so many 
are now my wounds." " Look at the temples of God, 
built with great labor, how they tremble, falling to ruin ; 
the high altars, heaped with no treasure, and seldom 
smoking with incense, are silent ; see how rarely a guest 
enters the inner places, and in what mean raiment the 
priest tends the shrine." * 

The great church of St. John Lateran, "the mother 
and head of all the churches of the city and the world," 
— " mater urbis et orbis" — had been almost destroyed 
by fire, with its adjoining palace, and the houses of the 
canons, on the Eve of St. John, in 1308. The palace 
and the canons' houses were rebuilt not long after ; but at 
the time of Petrarch's latest visit to Rome, and for years 
afterward, the church was without a roof, and its walls 
were ruinous. The poet addressed three at least of the 
Popes at Avignon with urgent appeals that this disgrace 
should no longer be permitted, — but the Popes gave no 
heed to his words ; for the ruin of Roman churches, or of 
Rome itself, was a matter of little concern to these trans- 
alpine prelates.f 

For years, indeed, the burden of Petrarch's public cor- 
respondence is mourning for the deserted city, longing 
for its restoration, for the return of the Head of the Uni- 
versal Church to the proper seat of universal dominion, 

* Epist. Poet. ii. 5, and i. 2. 

f See, beside the poetical letters already cited, to Clement VI. and 
Benedict XII., the prose letter to Urban V. Epist. Rer. Sen. vii. 1. 



ROME. 289 

and aspiration for an independent Italy, of which Rome 
should be the central glory and power. 

He lived long enough to see the Popes return to 
Rome, to behold the tide of pilgrims once more turn 
toward the no longer solitary city, the stream of tribute 
once more flow into Italian channels. But he lived lon^ 
enough to see also that the return of the Popes had 
brought back little vitality to the shrunken veins and 
disordered faculties of Rome. The vile impieties and 
impurities, the violence, the cheatings, the perjuries, 
which he had so often rebuked and denounced at the 
Court of Avignon, continued undiminished at the Court 
of Rome. Something more than the Papal presence was 
needed to purify and restore the city, and more than Pa- 
pal power was required to make Italy independent. Pe- 
trarch died in 1374, and Rome, five centuries after he 
last saw her, scarcely fulfils the prophetic visions of his 
imagination. 

Rome, 6th March, 1857. 
When Augustus was at the height of his power, he 
constructed a mausoleum for the burial-place of himself 
and of his family. Upon a broad base of marble, inclos- 
ing vaulted tombs, was raised a mound of earth covered 
to its summit with evergreens. On the top was a statue 
of the Emperor. Five years after it was built, its doors 
were for the first time opened to receive the ashes of the 
young Marcellus. 

" Quantos ille vimm magnam Mavortis ad urbem 
Campus aget gemitus ! vel quse, Tiberine, videbis 
19 



290 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Funera, qirum tumulum praeterlabere recentem ! 

Manibus date lilia plenis." 

Here, too, was Agrippa buried ; and hither, at length, 
the body of Augustus was borne on the shoulders of 
Senators, and, having been burned, its ashes were placed 
within the tomb. There was a man -of praetorian rank, 
says Suetonius, who swore that he beheld the figure of 
Augustus rising from the flames and ascending to heaven. 

For a considerable time the Mausoleum continued to 
be the burial-place of the imperial family. After long 
exile, the ashes of the great Agrippina, granddaughter 
and mother of an Emperor, were placed here by her 
wretched son. Some time in the fourteenth century, the 
cippus of marble which had held her cinerary urn was 
discovered, and it is now to be seen standing in the court- 
yard of the palace of the Conservatori on the Capitol. 
It bears an inscription striking from its condensed sim- 
plicity : — 

OSSA 

AGRIPPIN^B • M • AGRIPPA • P 

DIVI • AUG • NEPTIS • UXORIS 

GERMANICI • C^ESARIS 

MATRIS • C • C^SARIS • AUG 

GERMANICI • PRINCIPIS 

After Hadrian built his more splendid mausoleum, the 
earlier one was no longer used. When the Goths, under 
Alaric, sacked the city, they did not spare the habitations 
of the dead, but scattered their ashes and rifled them of 
whatever precious objects they might contain. " He that 
lay in a golden urn," says Sir Thomas Browne, " was not 



ROME. 291 

like to find the quiet of his bones." During the gloomy 
centuries of the fall of Rome, the Mausoleum became 
ruinous, and at length was seized upon by the Colonnas, 
and held by them as a fortress during long years of 
intestine violence and civil broils. At one time the en- 
raged Eomans got possession of it and attempted to de- 
stroy it utterly ; but the solid masonry of the base 
resisted their attempts, and, being retaken by the Colon- 
nas, afforded them for a period longer a secure strong- 
hold, from which they might issue forth at will on their 
freebooting excursions. 

The old walls still stand, but so surrounded by close- 
packed houses, that but little of the ancient structure is 
to be seen. The central area, in which were the tombs 
of the Ccesars, is now hollowed out into an open amphi- 
theatre, round which are ranges of seats to accommodate 
the common people of Rome, drawn thither in summer- 
time by the attractions of circus-riders or of Policinello. 
The dirty stairway which leads to the upper benches 
is lined with various marble slabs, bearing modern in- 
scriptions. They are alike in character, — and one of 
them runs as follows : — 

CESSA 

LA LOQTTACE TEOMBA DELLA FAMA 

OVE NON GIUNGE IL NOME 

DI 

GIOVANNI GUILLAU3IE 

SUPERBO FRENATORE DI DESTRIERI 

CUI STRAORDINARIAMENTE 

PLAUDIVA LA CITTA DEL TEBRO 

NELL AUTUNNI MDCCCLI 

e MDCCCLII. 



292 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

Such is the contrast between ancient and modern 
Rome ! " Here's fine revolution, if we had the trick to 
see't." " Why may not Imagination trace the noble dust 
of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole ? " 



Eome, 13th March, 1857. 

During the few months in 1848-9 in which Eome 
called herself a Republic, an illustrated paper was issued 
daily, except on feast-days, entitled " II Don Pirlone, 
Giornale di Caricature Politiche." It was of the most 
liberal stamp, and turned its ridicule against the Pope 
and the papalini of every class. It came to an end 
when the French occupied Pome, and since that time 
it has become exceedingly scarce, as no citizen of Pome 
could with safety to himself keep open possession of 
caricatures so pointed and satire so merciless as its 
pages exhibit. It has, however, not merely a political, 
but also an artistic interest; and its illustrations, beside 
throwing light upon the popular feeling and spirit, show 
as well the instant effect of freedom in giving life and 
vigor to the expressions of Art. 

The utter sterility and impotence of mind which have 
long been and are still conspicuous at Pome, the deadness 
of the Poman imagination, the absence of all intellectual 
energy in literature and in Art, are the necessary result 
of the political and moral servitude under which the 
Romans exist. Where the exercise of the privileges 
of thought is dangerous, the power of expression soon 
ceases. For a time, — as during the seventeenth cen- 



ROME. 293 

tury in Italy, — the external semblance of originality 
may remain, and mechanical facility of execution may 
conceal the absence of real life ; but by degrees the very 
semblance disappears, and facility of execution degener- 
ates into a mere trick of the hand. The Roman art- 
ists of the present time have not, in general, the capaci- 
ty even of good copyists. They can mix colors and can 
polish marble, but they are neither painters nor sculp- 
tors. 

Living surrounded by the noblest works of classic 
Art, constantly frequenting a school in which Raffaelle 
and Michel Angelo are the teachers, they have not 
the power even to imitate correctly the great works of 
the past, much less to create anything of their own. 
This wretched impotence cannot be the result of national 
or natural deficiency. The Italians are of the same race 
as their predecessors ; the climate and soil of Italy are 
the same now as formerly. But in the days when Italy 
contained great men, capable of great works, the political 
life of the people had not ceased, and the authority of 
the Church had not penned up their minds within its 
narrow walls of creed. Florence, which,- during a period 
of three centuries of political turbulence and activity, 
produced a succession of the most distinguished poets, 
historians, and artists, has not, during the last two hun- 
dred years of political servitude, given birth to one 
genius of the first order. A modicum of liberty is 
essential for the development of literature and Art. 
When political and spiritual despotism combine, a vacu- 
um is produced in which thought and imagination die 



294 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

out, and all the qualities of manly character dwindle and 
decay. 

But a little breath of liberty is sufficient to revive 
them ; and these numbers of " II Don Pirlone " which 
are lying before me are of especial interest as showing 
how quickly imagination exhibited itself, and expression 
became vigorous, even here, in this stagnant Rome, when 
for a moment men felt the exhilaration of freedom. 
There is more power in the hasty illustrations of its daily 
issue, more truth, more genuine feeling, than in the con- 
tents of all the modern galleries and studios of Roman 
artists put together. 

Take, for instance, the illustration in the number for 
the 21st of May, 1849, entitled " Un Matrimonio Segre- 
to." Within the walls of a church, above whose altar may 
be read the legend, " Ad minorem Dei gloriam" are seen 
a bride and bridegroom kneeling at a desk, before which 
stands the Pope, pronouncing the blessing on the mar- 
riage. The bridegroom is a figure in military uniform, 
but his head is that of the Gallic cock, and on his crest 
hangs the imperial crown ; the bride, with a woman's 
fair form in flowing robes, but with the double head of 
the Austrian eagle with rapacious beak and cruel eye, is 
reaching out her beautiful hand to receive the wedding- 
ring. On the desk, in place of the sacred emblems, 
are carved a skull and cross-bones, an axe and a whip. 
There is no classic formalism in this picture. Its mean- 
ing and its lesson are plain. 

Or look at the issue of the next day. On a wide 
plain is spread a broad sheet, at the head of which stand 



ROME. 295 

the word?, " Trattato del '15," " Treaty of 1815,"— over 
which a comic figure of the Emperor of Austria, with a 
headsman's axe at his side in place of a sword, and with 
folded arms, is striding with great paces. At each edge 
of the broadside are seen the words, " Coiifini Austriaci" 
" Austrian boundaries," and underneath the picture is 
read, "Faeciano pare Ungheresi, Italiani, ma qui saremmo 
sempre Noi V Imperatore" " Let the Hungarians and the 
Italians do what they can, on this we will forever be 
Emperor." There is no lack of fresh invention in a 
picture like this. 

On the 29th of May appeared a caricature still more 
humorous. It is called " Effetti d' Impressione." One of 
King Bomba's timorous soldiers, in the mask and slippers 
of Pantaloon, is seen seated at table about to take a soli- 
tary meal. But his attitude and face express the utmost 
consternation ; for all around him, before his bewildered 
eyes, appears the terrible name Garibaldi. It is on the 
wall, on every beam of the ceiling, on the tiles of the 
floor, on the leg of the table, on the back of the chair, 
on an old portrait ; — it is stamped on the loaf, it is in 
the wine, on the blade of the knife, and the wasps buzz- 
ing round the unprotected head bear it on their wings. 
Nothing but Garibaldi, — the name alone of the patriotic 
popular leader striking terror into the cowardly assailants 
of Rome. 

But on the 1st of June appeared a picture of intense 
dramatic energy and truth. That it is a picture which 
presents an unfair view of character and history, and con- 
tains the essence of Mazzinian spite, detracts in no degree 



296 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

from its force. It is called " The Wandering Jew." Fly- 
ing to the verge of Europe, where the Atlantic washes the 
shores of Portugal, is seen the tall figure of the unhappy 
Carlo Alberto, driven by skeleton ghosts, over whose heads 
shine stars with the dates 1821, 1831, 1848. In the midst 
of the sky, before the fugitive, are the flaming words, " A 
Carignano * Maledizione Eterna ! " " Cursed be Cari- 
gnano forever ! " — to which a hand, issuing from the 
clouds, points with extended forefinger. The grim and 
threatening skeletons, the ghosts of those whom Carignano 
had betrayed, the tormented look of the flying King, the 
malediction in the heavens, the solitude of the earth and 
the sea, display a concentrated power of imagination rare 
in Art. It is a picture that avenges many wrongs, — and, 
when read by the light of Carlo Alberto's death, and with 
the remembrance of the misinterpretations and confusions 
which have wrought such woe for Italy since 1849, the 
indignation and the hate which its aim is to excite turn 
to the deepest pathos and compassion. 

But the engraving which appeared on the 13th of June 
was the one of the whole series which excited the deepest 
feeling at the time of its publication, and is, perhaps, un- 
surpassed in the display of imagination and in fulness 
of suggestion. The sale of the number containing it 
was so large, that the first issue was speedily exhausted, 
and a second impression scarcely satisfied the popular 
demand. The Pope is beheld celebrating Mass. In 
place of the attendant priest is seen Oudinot, the gen- 

* Carlo Alberto bore the title of Principe dl Carignano before he 
became king. 



ROME. 297 

eral of the French forces, kneeling on the step of 
the altar, holding up the pontifical robe. Around are 
standing military officers, and behind them is a file of 
bayonets. The bell of the Mass is in the shape of an 
imperial crown. The Pope is just raising the consecrated 
wafer, — but the Christ of the crucifix upon the altar has 
detached his arms from the cross and covers his face with 
his hands, as if to shut out the sight of the impious sacri- 
fice. Lightnings dart from the cross, and a serpent 
raises his hissing head from the cup that should hold 
the blood of the Lord. The candles on the altar take 
the form of bayonets. Beneath the picture are the 
words, " Ha incominciato il servizio colla messa ed ha 
Jinito colle bombe,'' " The service began with the Mass 
and has ended with Bombs." The minor details of the 
design fill out its meaning, and add a cumulative force 
to its satire.* The drawing is hasty and inaccurate, but 
vigorous ; the draftsman has made his thought clear to 
whoever has eyes. 

The French took possession of Rome on the 2d of 
July, 1849, and on that day " II Don Pirlone" appeared 
for the last time. His spirit had not abated with the 

* Thus, the soles of the boots of General Oudinot, seen as he kneels, 
bear, one the words, u Articolo V. della Costituzione" — the other, "Ac- 
comodamento-Lessejos" ; thereby representing him as trampling upon 
the Constitution of the French Republic, the Constitution- J Jar vast, 
whose fifth article contained the following words: " La Republique, 
fran^aise n'emploie jamais ses forces contre la liberie d" aucun peuple" 
— while at the same time he tramples upon the arrangement entered 
into with the Roman Triumvirs on the 31st of May, by M. de Lesseps, 
the French Minister, in the spirit of the article just cited. 



298 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

fall of Rome. A naked female figure, with the cap of 
liberty upon her head, is seen lying, apparently dead, 
upon the ground. Near by stands a dunghill cock crow- 
ing vociferously, while a man in a general's uniform is 
engaged in throwing earth upon the corpse. The words 
with which the design is accompanied have a sting, the 
point of which the French may well have felt on that 
day, and which has not lost its sharpness even yet : — 
'' Ma, caro Signor Becc/mio, siete poi ben sicuro che sia 
morta ? ?" " But, dear Mr. Gravedigger, are you quite 
sure that she is dead ? " 

One closes the pages of " Don Pirlone " sadly, — for 
they end with the end of liberty in Rome. They illus- 
trate not merely the course of events and the popular 
feeling of the time, but, on a small scale, they show the 
working of eternal principles, and explain the degenera- 
cy of modern Italy. French soldiers and Italian priests 
have ruled Rome since the summer of 1849. The grave 
of the Republic was the grave of much more than a form 
of government. From such graves there is in time a 
resurrection. 

Rome, April, 1857. 
The fourteenth century was at once the evening of the 
Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance in Italy. 
Dante stands at its beginning, Boccaccio at its close, 
marking the separation between the old ideas and the 
new. Never was a book more in earnest than the " Divina 
Commedia," — rarely one less so than the " Decameron." 
The new era is inaugurated with a laugh, — but it is a 



ROME. 299 

laugh at once conscious and ironical. The invisible and 
the spiritual were losing their hold over the imaginations 
of men, while the visible and the material were continu- 
ally gaining a larger share in the desires and the belief 
of the age. Faith in God and in Christ, in heaven and in 
hell, in virtue and in retribution, faith even in the Church 
and in the future regeneration of Italy, exists in full 
strength at the beginning of the century ; but as the 
century advances, faith disappears, and infidelity looks 
out even from under the cowl of the monk. 

The gloom of the Dark Ages was breaking away. 
Those ages had been marked by the excesses of rude 
passions, by intensity of feeling, by sincerity of expres- 
sion, and by capacity of hearty and permanent enthu- 
siasm. But as they closed, passions were becoming 
subjected to the control of manners, expression was 
losing its force under the relaxation of refinement, en- 
thusiasm was yielding to indifference. The rough sin- 
cerities, the hard fights, the hearty loves and hates, the 
coarse life, the brilliant shows, the long romances of 
feudalism and chivalry, were drawing to an end. Force 
of arm and force of soul were exhausted by long effort. 
Weakness was gaining a victory over strength. The in- 
dividual was becoming less absolute, less distinct, absorbed 
more and more into the general life, — while the commu- 
nity was increasing its resources, and developing those 
arts and appliances of modern civilization which depend 
on the combination of many different elements in one 
compact mass. 

As the fifteenth century advanced, Italy was neither 



300 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

quiet nor at ease ; but her disturbances were not the 
result of the conflict of moral principles, or the clash of 
personal passions. There was a general aimless rest- 
lessness. »A hundred years before, it had seemed as if 
there were still a possibility of the existence of an 
Italian nation, still a chance for community of national 
sentiment and effort, still a hope of union for the preser- 
vation of Italian freedom. But the scattered fires of 
liberty went out one by one, or were put out by those 
who dreaded their flames. The old hopes died away. 
Even the old hereditary party-hatreds became extinct, 
for no men were left capable of nourishing them. Civil 
wars, carried on by independent bands of mercenaries in 
the interest of the prince or tyrant who could pay them 
best, took the place of the struggles of rival states, and 
of the battles of citizens fighting for what they them- 
selves held dear. Indifference to the higher things of 
life had gained possession of Italy. Even trouble and 
misfortune failed to rouse her to energy. She had lost 
the capacity of moral suffering,* and she sought relief 
from harass in self-forgetfulness among the delights of 
sensual enjoyment. 

The Church no longer exercised its ancient authority 
over the imaginations of men. Its thunders had become 
empty voices. The Papacy itself was in dispute. At 

* " Cette incapacity de souffrir moralement, qui deviendra de plus 
en plus le trait de l'ltalie, et la cause permanente de son esclavage." 
E. Quinet, Les Revolutions d'ltalie, ch. ix. 

This eloquent and imaginative book contains many striking and 
profound reflections upon Italian history and character. 



ROME. 301 

the opening of the fifteenth century, Boniface IX. was 
Pope in Rome, Benedict XIII. at Avignon. A few 
years later, there were three rival Popes, each claiming 
to be the true successor of Peter and the supreme 
ruler of the faithful, each denouncing his opponents with 
threatenings of divine vengeance in the bitter language 
of human wrath. The popular reverence for the sacred 
office, rudely shaken by such contests, was weakened 
still further by the characters of the rival prelates. 
The lives of the highest dignitaries of the Church were 
infamous with crime. Balthasar Cossa, known as Pope 
John XXIII., was better known as pirate, tyrant, adul- 
terer, and liar.* The vices and crimes of the higher 
clergy were paralleled on a lower scale by those of the 
inferior. " If any one is lazy, if he abhors labor, he 
flies to the priesthood." " The priests live more after 
the doctrine of Epicurus than of Christ." Such was the 
contemporary testimony. But the vices of the clergy 
excited less indignation than ridicule, and there is no 
completer proof of the deadness of moral feeling in 
Italy than that she made jests of the immoralities of her 

* When, on the 25th of May, 1416, he was formally deposed by 
the Council of Constance,, one of the articles of the act of deposition 
charged him with being "pauperum oppressor, justitise persecutor, 
iniquitatum columna, Simoniacorum statua, carnis cultor, vitiorum 
fex, a virtutibus peregrinus, infamiae speculum, et omnium malitia- 
rum profundus admonitor; adeo et in tantum scandalizans ecclesiam 
Christi, quod inter Christi fideles vitam et mores cognoscentes vulga- 
riter dicitur Diabolus incarnatus." Yet in a few months Balthasar 
was restored to the dignity of the Cardinalate. The pretensions of 
the Church could hardly stand firm against such blows levelled at 
them by its own high Council. 



302 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

priests, and turned away indifferent at the profanation 
of her altars. 

As confidence in the ministers of the Church was lost, 
so also departed regard for what they taught. When 
Braccio Montone, the leader of a free company of 
troops, had reduced Martin V. to his power, he was 
charged with having boasted that he would make the 
Pope say six masses for a bit of silver. " Six masses," 
replied he, " for a bit of silver ! I would not give him 
a bit of copper for a thousand." The illusions which 
had gathered round the Church were dispelled, — and 
the ties which now bound the Italian people to the 
Papacy were those of worldliness rather than of religion. 
That ecclesiastical sway should extend from Italy over 
the world was a matter of national ambition and pride. 
The Italians remained attached to the Church because 
the Pope had his seat in Rome. But the services of 
the Church were neglected, and the examples which it 
held up for imitation disregarded. The time was not 
propitious for saints. So far did the indifference to mat- 
ters of religion extend, that even heresy died away ; for 
there was no rebellion against doctrines which were not 
believed, but held with mere formal acquiescence. On 
feast-days, when there were great shows, or during peri- 
ods of calamity, the churches were frequented ; but even 
the lingering superstitious reverence for Mass and office 
did not succeed in filling them at common and regular 
seasons. As the century advanced, the prevalent un- 
belief deepened into irreverence. In 1443, that Clevel- 
and dissolute intriguer, iEneas Sylvius, who himself was 



ROME. 303 

Pope but fifteen years afterwards, gives the character of 
the times in a sentence in one of his letters. " We all," 
he wrote, " have the same faith with our temporal rulers. 
If they worshipped idols, we also should worship them. 
If the secular power should urge it, we should deny not 
only the Pope, but Christ himself. Charity is cold ; 
faith is dead." Faith is dead, and the future Pope sings 
the requiem over her body. 

The force of national character declined in corre- 
sponding measure with the decay of faith. It is only 
when men in this world are in conscious spiritual rela- 
tion with another, that their characters acquire dignity 
and strength, and their works possess enduring vitality. 
The period of original creative power seemed to be at 
an end in Italy ; for the capacity of spiritual energy and 
of enthusiasm was almost extinct. In an age of indiffer- 
ence and pleasure-seeking, great achievements may be 
admired, but will not be imitated. The cathedrals of 
Venice, of Siena, of Orvieto, the church of Assisi, the 
chapel of the Arena at Padua, were built and adorned by 
men whose souls were warmed into fervor by the coals 
upon the altar of sacrifice. Cathedrals, churches, and 
chapels such as these were henceforth to be impossible. 
Such genius as was left — and genius lingered on in Italy 
for nearly two centuries longer — was to occupy itself in 
works which had their source, not in the fresh fountains 
of the imagination, but in currents derived through newly 
opened channels from the past. The fifteenth century 
was the first of the centuries of imitation. The Renais- 
sance, the re-birth of the old life of the world, began. 



304 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

In poetry, in scholarship, in painting, sculpture, and 
architecture, men set themselves to copy the style of 
ancient times. The masters of the ancient world were 
made the despots of the modern. 

This spirit of dependence on the past, which had its 
origin in deep-lying moral deficiencies, was increased and 
fostered by certain external and seemingly fortuitous cir- 
cumstances. Since the middle of the twelfth century, 
knowledge of the excellence of classic Art had been 
slowly increasing in Italy. The sculptors of the pulpit 
at Pisa, of the Doge's palace at Venice, of the bas-reliefs 
of the Duomo at Orvieto, had seen and studied to good 
purpose some remains at least of ancient work in marble. 
The Venetian and Pisan galleys brought home, now and 
then, rare pieces of sculpture, which quickened the per- 
ceptions and widened the scope of native artists. Pe- 
trarch, with the weight of his personal influence and the 
charm of his style, had imparted his own zeal to others 
in the study of the remains of classic literature. As the 
fifteenth century came in, the search for the lost books of 
the ancients was beginning to show fair results. " It was 
a circumstance productive of the happiest consequences," 
says the philosophic Mr. Roscoe, " that the pursuits of 
the opulent were at this time directed rather towards the 
recovery of the works of the ancients than to the en- 
couragement of contemporary merit, — a fact that may 
serve to account in some degree for the dearth of original 
literary productions during this period." Whether this 
was " a happy consequence " may well be questioned. 
Many precious works, of which nothing had been known 



ROME. 305 

for centuries, were, indeed, recovered. There were no 
bounds to the extravagance of the esteem in which the 
ancient authors were held. Little judgment was exer- 
cised in regard to their essential merits. Their claim to 
reverence was regarded as unquestionable. The labors 
of commentators and translators were prized above all 
other literary work. Those authors of the time were 
most admired who best succeeded in imitating the ancient 
writers ; but the critical skill and taste of scholars were 
imperfect and debased, so that the faults no less than the 
excellences of the classics were praised and reproduced 
in modern writings. Original thought was discouraged, 
and the knowledge of the classics served to stifle fresh 
and independent works of mind. From about the mid- 
dle of the fifteenth century may be dated the rise of that 
spirit of pseudo-classicism which has blighted Italian 
literature from that day to this. Then began the Acad- 
emies, whose members hid their own names under high- 
sounding Latin appellations, — asses dressing themselves 
in lions' skins, and exhibiting their own feebleness by 
their very disguises. Then was established that code of 
false taste, whose laws, gaining gradually more and more 
authority, brought by slow degrees every department of 
literature and Art under their despotic and degrading 
control, and have not yet ceased to exercise a most inju- 
rious influence upon the national mind. 

The Councils of Ferrara and Florence, at which many 
of the learned prelates of the Greek Church were pres- 
ent, and still more the fall of Constantinople in 1453, 
by which the scholars of the East were driven to Italy, 

20 



306 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

promoted, in extraordinary measure, the prevalent admi- 
ration for antiquity, not only by giving to Italian scholars 
a knowledge of many works of the Greek authors, of 
which they had been ignorant, but also by supplying 
them with masters who could make that knowledge 
available. Men of letters learned to have faith only in 
what was dead. 

Nor was this the worst result of the rehabilitation of 
antiquity. With pagan literature came an influx of pa- 
gan sentiment. The practical disbelief of Christianity, 
as taught by Rome, led the way to the easy reception of 
heathen philosophy and principles of life. It was no 
mere scholarly impulse that led to the foundation of Pla- 
tonic academies, to the setting of Plato side by side with 
Christ as a teacher of the truth, to the professed admira- 
tion of the doctrines of Epicurus. The Church had 
nothing to offer to counterbalance the attractions of the 
new-found doctrines. The systems of her schoolmen and 
divines appeared narrow, dry, and hard, when brought 
face to face with those of the great masters from which 
they professed to be remotely derived. The philosophy 
which she taught was of no better quality than the re- 
ligion. She had succeeded in making both the one and 
the other despised. Nor was this all. The immorality 
of the period found not only a stimulus, but an excuse, 
in the old literature now extolled as divine. The author- 
ity of antiquity was invoked in favor of a looser code of 
morals, and of a more accommodating philosophy, than 
those which had Heaven and Hell for their final terms. 

It is true that many of the fathers of the Church — 



ROME. 307 

Basil and Chrysostom among them — were now brought, 
for the first time, to common knowledge in the West. 
But they could avail little against the powerful fascina- 
tions of the heathens, their old enemies, whom they had 
long ago left for beaten and routed. 

While heathen antiquity was thus promoting the cor- 
ruption of taste and of morals, and making the literature 
of the day stamp itself as counterfeit, its influence ex- 
tended by force of natural relations over the domain of 
Art. The beauty and the artistic perfection of the works 
of ancient Art were brought into open comparison with 
the imperfect execution of modern productions. The 
spell of unidealized beauty was thrown over the imag- 
inations of painters and sculptors. In estimating the 
influence of antiquity upon this period of Italian his- 
tory, the charm of classic beauty must be considered as 
one of its chief elements. It satisfied a deep-felt want ; 
it afforded a relief from the obscurity of symbolism, and 
from the intense moral consciousness of the works of the 
Middle Ages. It gratified the love of external life, did 
something to redeem sensuality from grossness, and cor- 
responded with the general tendency to find the things 
of this world all-sufficient for content. Venus revealed 
herself to Italy as she had once done to Paris, and Italy 
made the choice of the shepherd on Mount Ida, while 
Minerva stood by and approved. 

In the first half of the fifteenth century, the earth, the 
great treasury of sculpture, began to yield up the ancient 
statues and carved sarcophagi which it had long pro- 
tected. Poggio Bracciolini, the Florentine, who died in 



308 TKAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

1459, seems, indeed, to have known not more than five 
statues in Rome ; but there were many scattered works of 
ancient sculpture throughout Italy ; and shortly after the 
middle of the century the collection of such works was 
set about in earnest. Blondo Flavio published, previous- 
ly to 1447, the first regular treatise on the topography 
and antiquities of Rome. Even early in the century, it 
was the habit of the sculptors and architects of the north- 
ern cities of Italy to study the Roman remains. Vasari 
says of Ghiberti, that " he was the first who began to imi- 
tate the things of the ancient Romans." The good use to 
which his own fine genius and his patient labor enabled 
him to turn his study of classic Art appears in the unsur- 
passed beauties of his Gates of Paradise. But genius 
is not given to many men in one age in such measure as 
to enable them to overcome the unmanning effects of a 
professed system of imitation ; and to one who looks 
behind the marvellous excellence of the external and 
purely artistic qualities of Ghiberti's work, there appears 
some lack of the depth of meaning, of the simple and 
serene piety, the pure and concentrated expression of the 
works of the earlier masters. He had gained by his 
study of ancient models, or by the study of living ex- 
amples to which he was led through them, variety and 
animation of composition, mastery of form, attitude, and 
motion, — he had gained command over the body, but he 
had lost something of sympathy with the soul of his work. 
A still nobler genius than Ghiberti, his contemporary, 
Brunelleschi, exhibits in a still more positive manner, in 
his grandest work, the effect of a return to ancient mod- 



ROME. 309 

els. It was about the year 1403, that he, still a vwy 
young man, sold a little estate which he owned near Flor- 
ence, in order to obtain money for a visit to Home, where 
he desired to study the remains of the ancient buildings. 
" And there," says Vasari, " he gave himself up to his 
studies, taking no care about either food or sleep, devoted 
entirely to architecture, which at that time was extinct, — 
that is, I mean, the good ancient orders, for the German 
and barbarous style was still much used." Vasari, how- 
ever, is wrong in this last assertion ; for at this time " the 
German and barbarous style," as he calls it, was as dead 
as " the good ancient orders." Gothic architecture never 
took strong root in Italy. It was a style that did not cor- 
respond to the genius of the Latin race. It was always 
an exotic, and betrayed continually its foreign origin. 
Though it produced, in the course of the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries, some of the noblest buildings that ever 
rose upon Italian soil, it underwent modifications in their 
construction to fit it to Italian taste, and displayed in them 
a luxury of polished marble and a wealth of colored adorn- 
ment such as it never elsewhere exhibited. Even these 
buildings were due to that period when Italy, in great 
part settled by conquerors and emigrants from the North, 
experienced that strong thrill of energy which ran 
through her veins as she awoke from her prolonged 
slumber in the Dark Ages. 

It is a coincidence worth noting, that the corner-stone 
of Santa Maria de' Fiori at Florence, in its original design 
the grandest of all the Gothic cathedrals of Italy, was 
laid in the boyhood of Dante, the only Italian who has 



310 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

shown a capacity to sympathize to the full with the 
Gothic genius, — and that, after advancing rapidly for a 
few years, the work upon it ceased at about the time of 
his death. For a century, this beginning, worthy of the 
magnificent spirit of Florence in her best days, lay in- 
complete, a reproach to the city. At last it was deter- 
mined to finish the building. But who now could execute 
what Arnolfo had designed ? Architects were summoned 
from all parts of Europe. In 1420, the master-builders 
met in Florence. Many plans were suggested for the 
vaulting of the Cathedral. The wildest schemes were 
brought forward and discussed; for the enormous span of 
the arch to be thrown over the point of junction of the 
nave and the transept presented a difficulty which few of 
the builders of the time knew how to overcome with the 
legitimate resources of their art. Brunelleschi, however, 
profiting by his study of Roman buildings, and confident 
in his own power, undertook to construct what was 
needed. His proposal was at first universally derided, 
as that of a madman ; but, after long discussion, the 
work was committed to his charge. The result was 
the almost unsurpassed dome which crowns Florence, 
and which even Michel Angelo could hardly do more 
than rival. Splendid as a work of genius, wonderful 
as at once the first and almost the finest of modern 
domes, as the perfect renewal of a style lost for a thou- 
sand years, — nevertheless, this dome of Brunelleschi's 
went far to destroy the beauty, and did ruin the sym- 
metry of the cathedral which it surmounts. It is inap- 
propriate as a completion of the original structure. It 



ROME. 311 

is a Roman head set upon Gothic shoulders. Arnolfo's 
problem was not solved by the answer which Brunel- 
leschi gave to it. The work of the later architect bore 
the stamp of the later time. In the building, as Arnolfo 
had left it, there was an unexampled opportunity for 
a true Gothic dome, — grand arches leading up to a 
grander dome within, concentric story above story with- 
out, rising with forests of pinnacles clustered around the 
tall central spire, to outmatch the snowy peaks of Milan, 
to surpass the aspiring beauty of Strasburg or Cologne. 
The sense of the preeminent value of a completion that 
should be harmonious with the beginning of the Cathe- 
dral seems never to have been felt by Brunelleschi. No 
conception of the sentiment peculiar to Gothic architec- 
ture held back his hand from his bold and great under- 
taking. Henceforth the Gothic was banished from Italy, 
as a " German and barbarous style." The last stone of 
the lantern of Brunelleschi's dome was laid in 1461, fif- 
teen years after his death, and from this may be dated 
the rise of that imitative architecture which reached its 
highest glory in St. Peter's, and which then rapidly ran 
down into the deformities of the Jesuit churches of the 
following centuries. 

The same influences which affected the character of 
sculpture and of architecture with continually growing 
force impressed themselves upon the painting of the 
time. It would be a false supposition, indeed, to imagine 
that all the artists of the fifteenth century exhibited in 
their works the prevailing characteristics of the period. 
In the infinite diversity of the natural qualities and of 



312 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

the circumstances of men, there will always be found ex 
ceptions to prevailing rules. In every age, there are 
many individuals who stand in opposition to its most 
marked direction. Moreover, a course of national de- 
cline or progress is not established or confirmed at once 
and at a definite epoch. It often exhibits itself at first 
only in slight under-currents. The decay of the vital 
forces of a people may be altogether concealed for a time 
from the eyes of outside observers by shows of splendor, 
by lustre of genius, brilliant, though perverted, and, in- 
deed, by actual advance in material development, cor- 
responding in some measure to the loss of spiritual 
energy. Such was the case in Italy during a great 
part of this time. The luxury of habits had vastly in- 
creased. Living was both easier and more civilized than 
before. But living is not life. 

No works of Art were ever created with a purer 
spirit, with a sweeter piety, than those of Fra Angelico, 
who died in 1455. The air of heaven is fanned by 
the bright wings of his angels ; the peace of heaven is 
in their countenances. No spot of earth dims the shin- 
ing colors -of their robes. Such pictures as those of 
the monk of Fiesole prove that in some retired cor- 
ners of the earth Faith still had her abiding-place. 
But Fra Angelico had preserved his piety only by 
withdrawal from the world. " Although he might well 
have remained in the world," says his biographer, 
"yet, for his own satisfaction and quiet, being of a 
tranquil and good disposition, and especially in order 
to save his soul, he chose rather to make himself a 



ROME. 313 

monk of the order of the Preaching Friars." The 
convent-gate shut out from him the knowledge of man- 
kind. His life was solitary and exceptional, his charac- 
ter more refined than strong. 

While Fra Angelico was showing in the features and 
the gestures of his saints and angels the religious affec- 
tions of his soul, and exhibiting the human countenance 
in the exalted expressions of purity and devotion, Ma- 
saccio was carrying forward painting in another direc- 
tion, by a mastery of light and shade, and a power of 
representing the free action of the human figure, such 
as had never been attained by earlier artists. The 
pictures which he painted in the Brancacci chapel at 
Florence are, perhaps, the first in modern Art that show 
entire freedom in execution united with variety and 
power in design.* They were the first truly natural 
pictures, free from the restraints of imperfect methods 
and incomplete knowledge of drawing. They showed 
the result of careful study of antique Art, modifying 
and directing study from life. In them men assume their 
real attitudes and gestures, devoid of constraint, and 

* The fame of Masaccio has been raised too high, by attributing to 
his hand the finest of the works in this chapel. The late investiga- 
tions of Gave, of the editors of the Le Monnier edition of Vasari, 
and others, leave little doubt that the St. Peter in PrisGii visited by 
St. Paul, and the St. Peter and St. Paul before the Proconsul, which 
are not surpassed in excellence by any other pictures in the chapel, 
and which have been popularly ascribed to Masaccio, were in fact 
painted some forty years after his death by Filippino Lippi. There 
can be no question, however, that Masaccio's influence is visible in 
these later works, and that he deserves all credit for opening new 
ways of excellence in Art. 



314 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

equally devoid of exaggeration. The Brancacci chapel 
was one of the chief schools of Michel Angelo and of 
Raffaelle. Many of the figures which he found there 
Raffaelle transferred, without improving thein, to his 
own pictures. 

But although Masaccio thus led the way to a rapid 
development of the powers of Art, although its materials 
were increased almost at the same time by the discovery 
and use of oil-colors, and although in many ways the 
science of painting was vastly improved, yet neither 
Masaccio nor any of his immediate followers showed a 
corresponding development in the more intimate and 
spiritual parts of their art. On the contrary, while the 
manner and method of painting were improving, the 
thought and feeling expressed by it were losing in mean- 
ing, in depth, and in truth. Compositions were gain- 
ing in fulness, variety, and grace, but were declining in 
simplicity and in dignity.* It seemed as if, while the 

* A striking instance of this fact is to be observed in comparing 
the recently uncovered fresco by Giotto in the church of Santa Croce, 
in Florence, representing the Incredulity of Jerome, with the same 
subject as painted by Ghirlandaio in the church of Santa Trinita. 
Giotto's picture was painted early in the fourteenth century, Ghirlan- 
daio's toward the end of the fifteenth. The first has lately been en- 
graved from a drawing by Mignati. The second may be found in out- 
line in Kugler's Handbook of Painting in Italy, where it is called " The 
Death of St. Francis," and is very highly praised as possessing 
"simple arrangement," "artless, uv.affected dignity," "noble and 
manly expression." But the fact is, that the main features of the 
composition are taken bodily from Giotto's work, with the introduc- 
tion of some needless figures and injurious accessories. The terms 
which Kugler uses in regard to Ghirlandaio' s are appropriate to, 



ROME. 315 

secret of the beauty and glory of this world had been 
found, the more precious knowledge of the divine beauty, 
of which earth affords but the outward image, had been 
lost. Art was no longer the handmaid of piety, no lon- 
ger the expression of purity. It was sinking to mere 
decorative purposes. Chapels were now, as formerly, 
adorned with painting; but the new pictures had often 
little that was sacred, except their subjects, and served 
to awaken no feelings of devotion, of religious tenderness, 
or awe. In the Campo Santo at Pisa, where, a hundred 
years before, Orcagna had painted his solemn pictures 
of the Four Last Things, Benozzo Gozzoli now painted 
on the opposite walls lovely compositions taken from the 
stories of the Old Testament, and full of the pleasant- 
ness, the gladness, even the mirth of life. Acro^ the 
narrow green strip of graveyard, the two painted walls 
looked at each other, revealing the gulf that lay between 
the past century and the present. 

As Painting decorated herself with new and unwonted 
charms, and as she came down from the contemplation 
of heavenly things to delight herself in the graces and 
accomplishments of sensual life, dilettantism, which had 
already begun to exhibit itself in literature, and which 
takes the place of passion in an age of indifference and 
skepticism, added another to the many existing influences 

Giotto's picture. In the later work, the simplicity, the dignity, 
the tenderness of the earlier are greatly diminished. The one is 
instinct with deep feeling and true piety, — the other with conven- 
tional expression and Romanized faith. The history of the decline 
of Italian spiritual life lies between the two. 



316 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

which were joined to reduce the level and aim of Art. 
Painting, sculpture, and architecture were, indeed, stim- 
ulated to remarkable productiveness by the growth of 
private patronage, and by the demand which was made 
upon them to minister with their delights to the luxuri- 
ous spirit of the times. They answered readily to the 
call, and lavished themselves in decorative displays, in 
the construction and adornment of the halls and cham- 
bers of private palaces^ or the chapels of private devo- 
tion. They took their part in the open and gay world, 
and learned easily to accommodate themselves to its 
desires. The pencil that had designed virgins and saints 
turned now to the depicting of Venuses and Cupids. 
The licentious figures of heathenism were reproduced 
in modern statues, — and painting and sculpture lent 
themselves to be the panders of voluptuousness. 

The discovery of printing, followed by the great mari- 
time discoveries in which Italian navigators led the way, 
roused the already active intellectual spirit of the last 
half of the century to still more untiring and restless 
exertions. But the art of printing, in making books 
more generally accessible, and diffusing a knowledge of 
letters, seems rather to have depressed than to have 
stimulated the development of original thought. There 
was a strange contrast, during this period, between the 
greatness of physical achievements, the vast increase of 
knowledge from sources external to the mind of man, 
the extraordinary intellectual activity, and the deficiency 
of intellectual force. Intrinsic feebleness corresponded 
to a hitherto unexampled rapidity of material prog- 



ROME. 317 

ress. In the midst of discoveries of startling grandeur, 
the Italian imagination grew cold, and rarely showed 
itself, save in the range of science and physical inves- 
tigation. Literature lost dignity, and seemed to lose 
even the consciousness of morality. The poetic fancy 
appears in the rhymed satire of Pulci, in the mock pas- 
torals of Lorenzo, in the Latin verse of Politian. The 
so-called golden age of Italian letters, the age of Lorenzo 
de' Medici, upon which the flattery of historians and es- 
sayists has been lavished, till its praise has become one 
of the rhetorical commonplaces of literature, was in truth 
a gilded, rather than a golden age. Lorenzo is called the 
patron of letters and of Art ; but when letters and 
Art need a patron, it is because they have lost their 
own natural vigor. 

Only one great genius, one whose power all the world 
recognizes and honors, belongs to the Art or literature of 
Italy of the last half of the fifteenth century. Leonardo 
da Vinci stands apart from his time, unapproached, alone. 
The illegitimate son of a country notary, he waited for 
no patron to stamp him with the mark of vulgar appro- 
bation. While other men were growing up in the con- 
formities of faithless pietism, he learned to know the 
presence of God among the blue mountains that encircle 
Florence, and in the crowded market-place of the infidel 
city. The eternal and silent teachers of truth taught him 
a religion which had no place in the hearts of the men 
around him. 6k Such were his caprices," says Yasari, who 
believed in Christianity after the manner of the Popes, 
"such were his caprices, that, philosophizing about the 



318 TRAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

things of Nature, he eame to understand the properties of 
plants, and was continually observing the motions of the 
heavens, the course of the moon, and the goings of the 
sun ; by which there arose in his mind a conceit so 
heretical, that he united himself to no special religion, 
thinking, perhaps, that it was better to be a philosopher 
than a Christian." * Little did the worthy biographer 
know of the heart of that man, who painted a head of the 
Saviour so tender and so sorrowful, with such depths of 
manly sympathy and strength, that in itself it gives tes- 
timony that the love of the Lord had entered into and 
taken possession of the heart of the painter. There is 
no other work of the last half of the century to be put 
by the side of Leonardo's picture of the Last Supper. 
While this picture stands in express opposition to the 
temper of the times, the result to which the discipline of 
the age had brought the ablest intellects is displayed, per- 
haps, nowhere more clearly than in the works of Machia- 
velli. Their freedom from passion and from personal 
feeling gives to them peculiar value as illustrations of 
prevailing principles. They are the cool deductions of 
an able man of the world from wide and various experi- 
ence. They do not so much exhibit the existence of vice 
among men as the absence of virtue. They are not im- 
moral, but simply unmoral. They are the works of a 
modern heathen philosopher, calm in tone, clear in state- 
ment, recognizing neither right nor wrong as abstract 
qualities, exhibiting the modes and system of tyranny, 

* This passage occurs in the first edition of Vasari's Life of Leo- 
nardo ; — it was omitted from the second. 



ROME. 319 

without justifying, but equally without condemning them. 
The end justifies the means, the world is to be dealt with 
in worldly ways, and policy does not necessarily coincide 
with justice and with truth. 

" Faith is dead " at the middle of the century ; — the 
moral sense of man had died before its end. " Iniquity 
and sin had multiplied in Italy," writes the Florentine 
Benivieni, of the last decade of these hundred years, 

" because the land had lost the faith of Christ 

All Italy, and especially the city of Florence, w r as given 
over to skepticism. Men and women returned to heathen 
customs, and took delight in the study of the poets, in as- 
trology, and in all superstitions." In the year 1490, in 
the midst of this society, in Florence itself, the enthusiast 
Savonarola began for the second time to preach Reform. 
The words in which Benivieni describes the rottenness of 
Italy are not so strong as those in which the ardent Do- 
minican depicts the crimes and vices of his hearers. If 
one would learn what Italy had become, he may learn 
it from the passionate sermons in w T hich the undaunted 
monk, filled with the spirit of prophecy, denounced woe 
upon the people, unless they turned from their evil ways. 
There was doubtless much exaggeration, much false zeal, 
in the heated sentences of his irresistible invective ; but 
beneath all the extravagances of his visionary and ex- 
alted eloquence lay a broad and deep foundation of truth. 
For a time, the fervid spirit of Savonarola lighted up the 
flames of repentance in the hearts of the fickle Floren- 
tines. In the Carnival season of 1492, they built a pile 
in the public square, heaping upon it their ornaments 



320 TEAVEL AND STUDY IN ITALY. 

masks, gaming-tables, licentious books, voluptuous pic- 
tures and carvings, and consumed them all. The next 
year the temporary passion for sacrifice had died away, 
— another fire was lighted, and the man who had ven- 
tured to preach repentance and reformation to people, to 
priests, and to Pope, was burned as the reward of his 
audacity. The smoke rising from his funeral-pile spreads 
in a dark cloud over Italy. Alexander VI., Borgia, Pope 
without a rival in infamy, was at the head of the Church. 
Paganism was enthroned at Rome, and crowned with the 
triple crown. 

The sixteenth century was to develop the chief re- 
sults of the principles in Art, in literature, and in relig- 
ion, which had had their birth in the fifteenth. Over 
the gateway through which it is entered are the words, 
Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-mor- 
row we die. For two hundred years Italy has lain 
dead. 



THE END. 



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Papers, 2 vols, by J. R. Lowell ; *o. Backlog Studies, by C 
D. Warner. 



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12 Houghton, Mifflin and Company's 

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622 *m 



